The Poster Incident
by Tera Earth
Summary: You want a summary short and sweet? Anime characters comes out of wall scrolls, college age anime club trying to keep it under control and Orochimaru is being beat up by a girl with a frying pan. Crossover with Naruto, Slayers, and much more.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Ok, this is where we say that we don't own anything in here, except for what you don't recognize. In other words, we own the characters not from the animes.

Note: , means that it is in their minds. Their thoughts. Well actually just those 2 characters thoughts

Chapter One: And Then There Was Chaos

It was Monday, December 15th, and school was out. The ground was currently covered with a foot and a half of snow, and the students at the Midway School of the Arts were getting ready to go home for the holidays. Mandy wasn't worried, though. She was in bed, sleeping.

The city of Midway, Pennsylvania had been hit by a terrific snowstorm the night before, and needless to say, for the students who planned on going home, this was a bit of a problem. The snow had made the roads kind of treacherous, and Mandy's parents had called the night before to let her know that they wouldn't be able to make it for another day or two, and did she have enough food until then? She was fine, and she was dreaming, dead to the world. Her dreams of swimming were cut short by the sound of her cell phone. She groaned as she reached over to the loveseat where her phone was, and nearly dropped it as she opened it.

"…'Ello?"

"Mandy!" the excited voice on the other end shouted, as what sounded like a tray of silverware hitting the floor echoed in the background. "Hey, keep it down, I'm on the phone!"

"…Kitty?" Mandy asked groggily, still half-asleep. "What the hell was that? Are your roommates moving?"

"Nah, they left for break. Anyway, Seikai wants us, or as many members of the anime club as possible, to get to her house ASAP for an emergency meeting. And bring food. HEY, PUT THAT DOWN!" Mandy blinked, and put the phone down on the bed and stared at it.

"Mandy?...Mandy…MANDY!" She picked the phone back up.

"…What?"

"Are you STILL in bed?" Kitty asked incredulously.

"…Yeah. Why?" Mandy asked, knowing that Kitty was getting exasperated. She could practically see her friend rolling her eyes at that last remark.

"It's three o' clock. In the Afternoon. This is important, so get up NOW. And BRING FOOD."  
"Bring food where?" Mandy asked, now fully awake.

"TO SEIKAI'S PLACE!" Kitty roared, causing Mandy to wince and hold the phone at arm's length away from her ear. Whoever was in the room with Kitty obviously found this very entertaining.

"Why?" she asked, hoping that the next answer wouldn't be so loud.

"You'll see when you get here."

"Get where? You mean you're already at Sei-chan's place?"

"YES!" Mandy threw the phone across the room, where it fell by the closet. 'I knew I shouldn't have turned the volume on the earpiece up that loud.'

"OK, OK, I'll be there. Geez."

It was an hour later, and Mandy was finally standing in front of the old apartment building across town. She was wearing her red 'I Love Rock n' Roll' shirt with the winged guitar on it, and her old baggy jeans, which were now soaked up to the knees from having to climb through snowdrifts to get to the sidewalk, which really wasn't much better. Her feet were cold, she was cold, and she was hungry. She groaned as she adjusted her backpack, and her computer case. Her purse (more like a miniature book bag) dangled off her right shoulder. She was carrying two plastic bags of instant ramen, a frying pan, a cooking pot, three boxes of Pocky, and several pouches of instant oatmeal. The MP3 player that was on her neck was currently starting on 'American Idiot' by Green Day, and Mandy did feel like an idiot for trudging through the snow for half an hour to go to some secret, spur of the moment meeting. 'Well, Seikai had to have had a good reason for inviting everyone. Hell, even Kyle's car is here.' She thought as she opened the front door and stepped inside.

She always felt claustrophobic in the small, cramped entranceway and as she began to climb to the third floor where Seikai lived. Sure, the club was small, but there had been a lot of background noise during that phone call. Seikai's apartment had a kitchen, a living room that doubled as a dining room, two bedrooms, and a small bathroom. What if this was some event to get more members in the club? And just how many people were there, anyway? As she finally got to the third floor and the door to Seikai's place, she heard all the voices. There was quite a few of them, and they were often interrupted by crashing sounds and bumps.

All of this was happening behind that nondescript, battered old door. 'I could just turn around and go home right now,' she thought, and then remembered all the snow. 'Scratch that, there's no way in hell I'm walking back right away!' She made up her mind, and reached out and opened the door, stepping into the narrow hallway. As she took off her shoes, she walked over to the door leading to the living room and stared. 'Wow, the whole club's here, and they… brought cosplaying friends? The con isn't 'til April!' She thought, shuddering as she noticed the Kakashi cosplayer staring at her. 'Ugh, creepy!' He chuckled and went back to reading an orange book, and she went back to putting her computer, and her backpack underneath the huge Naruto wallscroll that was at the end of the hallway. She made her way through the crowd of people, and finally made it to the kitchen. "Hey, I'm here!" she shouted, holding up the plastic bags, The girl in front of the counter whirled around, her glasses gleaming dramatically.

"You made it!" she shouted, hugging Mandy tightly. Something cracked.

"Can't….breathe." Mandy gasped. Seikai let go.

"Sorry, it's just nice to have more food. We were worried that we'd run out of ramen!"

Seikai grinned, and gestured to the kitchen. "We have a small group on kitchen duty right

now." Mandy could see Kitty, Venus, and someone else working.

"So, they're helping out?"

"Yeah, they were getting a little crazy, so I put them to work." Seikai remarked. Mandy decided she shouldn't get on Seikai's bad side. The kitchen was small and cramped, and it didn't help that Seikai's cat Shinigami had its litter box in there. That was when she noticed the girl working with Venus and Kitty.

"Wow, Ashley dyed her hair pink!"

"Uh, yeah, about that…" Seikai started, before Mandy handed her the plastic bags and she began rummaging through them. "Okay, we won't need the frying pan or the pocky" she said, handing said items to Mandy, who looked like a kid on Christmas morning as she held the frying pan. "And we're pretty good in the kitchen, so…go do whatever."

"Yay!" Mandy cheered, as she left the kitchen and went into the hallway to get her computer. Seikai stared as Sakura came up beside her.

"She didn't notice, did she?"

"Nope, apparently not."

"She can be pretty dense sometimes." Kitty remarked from her post at the stove. Sakura

sighed as similar incidents involving Naruto came to mind.

"That's just sad."

"Heck, you should see her on a sugar rush." Kitty laughed. "She gets even worse."

"I don't see how this could get any worse." Sakura remarked. They were cut off by a loud scream a moment later. "I stand corrected."

To understand what just happened, let's go back a few minutes to the time Mandy took her laptop to the back room and turned it on. She sat it on the floor in the corner, before she picked it up, put her sketchbook down, and set the computer on top of it.  
"Man, I'm hungry." She commented to herself as she left the room. She walked to the end of the hallway, where she could see into the living room. She did a double take as she picked up the Pocky and the frying pan. 'Tom did an excellent job with that Jiraya costume. So did those two dressed as Lina and Naga -Are those real? Oh my god, why are they attacking Tom?' Mandy decided she didn't want to know as she shook her head and headed back towards her workstation. As she entered the room, she realized, to her horror, that she was not alone. Her Pocky dropped to the floor, unnoticed. 'Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod……' she thought as she saw who was sitting in front of her computer. Long black hair cascaded down their back, a pale hand supported their weight as they leaned forward to investigate the computer…then they turned around, saw her, and started to get up…

'OH SHIT!' Mandy screamed and began hitting the intruder with the frying pan. There was a 'clonk', and then a thud as the intruder fell. She ran out of the room, only to run into the Neji cosplayer. She screamed again, and hit him in the nuts with the frying pan. That was when she noticed that she had a relatively large audience.

"What happened?" Seikai asked, trying to hold her laughter back and not quite succeeding. The rest of the anime club and the cosplayers were chuckling, until they saw the look on Mandy's face. She was paler than usual and shaking as she looked at the floor. Mandy mumbled something incoherent. "What happened?" Seikai repeated. Mandy looked at her and finally got the words out.

"…The lady from Ju-On tried to steal my computer." she said shakily, and that's when she noticed that only the anime club was laughing this time. Kyle came up and patted her on the back.

"That wasn't the lady from Ju-On. Hell, that wasn't even a woman." He laughed, and then he showed her the person she hit. "You just took down Orochimaru." The said ninja was sprawled out on his back on the floor, staring at the ceiling with a confused look on his face. Jiraya walked in and prodded him with his foot.

"You okay, old friend?" he asked, grinning evilly. Orochimaru glanced off towards the window, scowling.

"What did she attack me for? I just wanted to ask about that monitoring device."

"….I attacked a cosplayer? Is he a friend of yours, Tom?" Mandy asked Jiraya in a horrified voice. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"

"Who the hell's Tom?" Jiraya asked, scratching his head as Mandy went behind him and-

"AGH! MY HAIR!" he yelled, grabbing at it. "What was that for?!"

"….You mean that wasn't a wig?"

"Guys," Kyle said in a resigned voice. "We have a lot of explaining to do."

"Yes, let's get this done before somebody else gets hurt." The man in the black trench coat and wide-brimmed hat remarked. Mandy grinned and pointed at him.

"Dude, he looks just like Vampire Hunter D!"

"Now what the hell's she talking about?" Jiraya asked as Mandy picked up the boxes of Pocky that were scattered on the floor. She opened a box, and began munching on it as she shoved her way out of the room. 'God, I hate crowds.'

"Okay, this might take a while to explain," Venus began as everyone found someplace to sit in the living room. "But these guys aren't cosplayers."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, they're real. Apparently, they came out of the posters in Seikai's room." Mandy blinked, as did her other friend Kite. Apparently he hadn't been informed either.

"But aren't some of those posters a little high up on the walls?" she asked. 'Damn, that had to hurt.' She noted that several of the characters winced as she mentioned that little fact. 'Oh yeah, and that Naruto wall scroll was right above-'

"Seikai, what happened to your computer?"

"…The computer is fine. The monitor is smashed beyond recognition into itty bitty pieces." she said in a hyperactively angry voice.

"That sucks." Kite remarked.

"Yeah."

"Lemme guess, that toad-summon-thing squashed it." Mandy said sarcastically, waving a stick of Pocky in the air as she spoke.

"No, actually Naruto landed on it, followed by the rest of us. How troublesome." Shikamaru commented. Kitty stared at him.

"You really do complain a lot."

"Kitty, don't antagonize the ninjas."

"No, that would be your job, Mandy."

"Well, I don't have a death wish."

"You're the one that took down Orochimaru and Neji-prick."

"Well, I can't help it if they look like the bloody lady from The Grudge! Besides, she's been known to multiply. And knowing Neji-prick, he deserved it!"

"How DARE you!" Neji shouted, as Hinata looked on, fidgeting nervously.

"Stupid prick!"

"Civilian!"

"Da Shabi!"

"…What?"

"It's Cantonese for 'Dumb Cunt', you nasty little prick."

"…Mandy, where did you learn that?" Venus asked, as the rest of the group began howling with laughter.

"Internet."

"Oh. Well, I guess it's true that you can find anything on there." Kyle laughed and slapped Kakashi on the back. "Dude, she hates you."

"…Why?"

"The mask, dude. She thinks you're creepy."

"Oi, Kyle, don't talk about me like I'm a bloody fucking fangirl!" Mandy shouted, before turning to Hinata. "Hi, Hina-chan."

"U-um…h-h-hello." She stuttered nervously. 'Dear god, what kind of family does she have? She's a nervous wreck!'

"My name is Mandy O'Riley. Wanna be friends?" Mandy asked, holding out her hand and grinning.

"O-okay." Hinata shook her hand nervously, and Mandy mentally shook her head. 'Damn ninjas, can't even raise a child properly.'

She noticed everyone was staring at her. 'Uh-oh, looks like I voiced my thoughts.'

"What was that?" Dr. Jackal asked, and Mandy then did something very stupid.

"I don't have to tell you, since you're not a ninja." She shrugged, and put her headphones on. Ginji and Ban sweatdropped. She talked back to him…

"So, would you tell a ninja?"

"Well, it would depend on my mood. Maybe later, when I feel like talking to you guys."

Seikai stared, and then decided to get everyone's attention. "Listen up, everyone! There will no killing or maiming while you are here! As our guests, you have to listen to us! And Lina and Naga, you will NOT eat us out of house and home! We seriously can't afford to feed you the amount of food you normally eat!" She proceeded to make a bunch of rules, before deciding to finally just do whatever. The visitors then started to explore their new world, while the anime club proceeded to follow them around and make sure they didn't get hurt. After all, there were a lot of things that they had never seen before, like the PS2, the toaster oven, or posters of themselves.

Mandy sat in the living room, staring at the strange scene before her. Naruto had challenged Sasuke to a game of Soul Calibur II, which was entertaining in the fact that they had no idea what the hell they were doing. Sakura and Hinata were cheering them on, while Lee was busy trying to impress Sakura by imitating moves from the game. He ended up kicking Naruto in the head and a small fight ensued, with them yelling at each other. Mandy really couldn't quite hear them, as in typical Mandy fashion, she had her headphones on. She did see Kakashi break up the fight, though, as the girls and Sasuke just stood there shaking their heads. She rolled her eyes and continued reading Boogiepop and Others, silently wondering if the Manticore was related to Orochimaru in any way. Kitty and Kyle were in the kitchen, talking about the situation the club had found itself in.

"Have you seen Lina and Naga?" Kitty asked as she opened the fridge to get a Coke.

"Yeah." Kyle grinned. "They're torturing Jiraya."

"Lemme guess, he was peeking at them while they were changing."

"Yep."

"What an idiot."

"Yeah."

Hope you enjoyed this first chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Same as the one in the first chapter. If you havnt read the first chapter yet...why are you at the second chapter!!!!!!!

Chapter Two: A Character Appears! Samantha's Arrival!

Skritch. Skritch. Mandy was sketching a scene of carnage as she stared at the now empty posters in Seikai's room. The other Naruto poster still had Naruto in a forest, with one of Lee's squirrels. It was peaceful, 'Elvenpath' was currently playing in her ears, and Naruto had just ran into the room and shut the door. Wait, what was that last part?

"You gotta hide me!"

"…What the hell are you doing in here?"

"I pissed off Sakura, and she's after me!"

"What else is new?" Mandy sighed and went back to her drawing. At least, that's what she was going to do.

"Is the wall supposed to do that?" Naruto asked, pointing to the space formerly occupied by the Naruto group wallscroll above Seikai's desk. Mandy looked up. The wall was, well different.

"What the hell?" She blinked as the texture began to change, stretching like taffy. Naruto went up to it, reached out his hand to touch it-just as Sakura slammed the door open and-

"OH MY GOD!" Sakura screamed as a hand emerged out of the wall and grabbed Naruto by the wrist. 'Dude, it's just like that scene from Rings!' Mandy thought. That's when all hell broke loose as Sakura ran out of the room screaming, Mandy was yelling and cursing, and Naruto fainted just as the others poured into the room. A quick survey of the room revealed that Mandy had jumped into the corner and was brandishing her sketchbook like a weapon, while Naruto was passed out on the floor, with foam coming out of his mouth, and a girl with long black hair in a ponytail holding on to his wrist staring at him.

"Who are you?" Kakashi asked, narrowing his one visible eye. The girl looked up at him, and then looked around the room, examining her surroundings. She let Naruto go and stood up, her golden hoop earrings glittering.

"Um, hi, my name is Samantha Maile Mo'okini, and I am here because there was a Distortion." She announced, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder and glaring at him.

"Holy shit, it's you." Mandy gaped, staring at the girl before her. Everyone turned around and stared at her and Samantha quirked an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"She's the comic character I created." There was a stunned silence.

"WHAT?!" Mandy sighed.

"I created her when I was in high school, and I've been working on her personality ever since then. She has a mom, Keiko, an archaeologist who is barely ever home. There's Phil, her dad, and he's a scientist working for the government involving dimensional travel."

"And he's the one that sent me." Samantha cut in. "According to the data he received, there was a tear in the barrier between the Root World, and the Branch Worlds that the Root World created for entertainment. Your TV shows."

"I'm guessing that's a bad thing." Kyle said dryly. Kitty nodded.

"Oh definitely. What if some super villain like the Joker came here?"

"Don't jinx us." Mandy remarked, shuddering. "He's just as scary as the lady from Ju-On."

"Don't worry; we've contained the damage with some help from our friends from the Center, Section 13, and Division Six"

"Wait, you're in the same world as them?" Mandy asked.

"No, but we have made contact with them. Anyway, the only problem is that my Dimensional Portal Generator Wrist Unit (or as I call it, the Broken Door) will take at least three weeks to recharge so I can take everybody back to their worlds."

"Oh, that's fine." Seikai said, laughing. "We're all going to have some of you guys come home with us for Christmas." There was another stunned silence before there was a collective cry of "WHAT?" from the room's inhabitants. Seikai grinned evilly and began laughing maniacally.

"Does she always do that?" Samantha asked Mandy. She nodded.

"The anime club can get pretty crazy. Hell, you should see Sei-chan there on a sugar rush."

"Mandy, you're worse then her when you're hyper." Kitty sighed, remembering when Mandy had terrorized Brian during one of the all-nighters the club had once every semester. He had fallen asleep, and Mandy had taken it upon herself to wake him up by shouting "DANGER!" in his ear. The poor guy had fallen out of his chair in shock.

"Unagi!" Mandy yelled happily, thrusting her fist into the air.

"…Unagi?" Naruto asked confusedly as Samantha joined in the shouting.

"It's a Friends joke."

"…I don't get it."

"I don't blame you. You've never heard of the show."

"Dear god, they're like twins." Kyle remarked as Samantha and Mandy began excitedly talking about their favorite episodes, and even quoting them.

"Oh, remember the one where Monica thought Chandler had that-" Mandy started.

"When she thought Chandler had that shark fetish?" Samantha finished.

"And she even said she should get in the tub and 'thrash around'?" Mandy was nearly choking, she was laughing so hard. "Oh, and the 'Holiday Armadillo' one was classic!"

"THIS PLANE HAS NO PHILANGES!" Samantha yelled.

"RAAAAACHEEEEEEEEEEELL!" Mandy screamed.

"WILL YOU SHUT UP?!" Neji shouted angrily, and Mandy turned around and glared at him.

"Was that out of character for him?" she asked Seikai, who shrugged her shoulders. She then turned to Neji and stuck her tongue out at him. "Loser."

"What?!"

"A loser is a loser, and nothing can change that." She said calmly, and then brightened up. "Ooh, I love this song!" she cheered, and began headbanging.

"What…is she doing now?" Lina asked. "She's acting like an idiot."

"It's just a sugar rush." Kitty explained. "She should be out of it relatively quick." Sure enough, Mandy stopped headbanging.

"My head hurts." She whined, putting a hand on her forehead. "Do ya have any aspirin?"

"No. I ran out last night." Seikai put her hand behind her head, laughing nervously. "I had a massive migraine."

"Whatever, I'm going to the Seven-Eleven." Mandy picked up her purse and headed for

the door.

"Can I come?"

"Sure, Sam, just try not to kill anyone."

"…Kill?" Naruto asked nervously, his eyes wide.

"She tends to go berserk if provoked. Think Eva Unit 01. That and she's really good with a sword and her fists." There was a stunned silence. "I was kidding about the Eva part. Geez, lighten up already! She's not gonna eat you guys. But she will go all Kill Bill on your asses."

"Tarantino rules!" Samantha proclaimed, with a big grin on her face.

"Hell yeah!" Mandy exclaimed. Kitty began whistling 'Twisted Nerve'. The ninjas, Getbackers, and the Slayers were confused. Honestly, who could blame them? The three girls continued talking as they left the apartment, discussing who had the coolest fight scene in the Kill Bill films, leaving the apartment full of confused characters behind.

"Yay, they have chocolate milk!" Mandy cheered as she grabbed a shopping basket and began loading it with milk.

"What happened to the headache?" Samantha asked, quirking an eyebrow. Mandy grinned at her.

"I needed to get out of there. Too many people."

"Ahh, so you hate crowds."

"Pretty much, yeah. Ooh, they have cookies!"

"…And you obviously get sidetracked easily."

"Yep. Kitty does too."

"Sure do."

"I see."

By the time they left the store, Mandy had bought six bottles of chocolate milk, and a bag of Chips Ahoy!TM cookies, and was cheerfully explaining how the ninjas would end up like the Crazy 88's-dead, and was going into graphic detail. Kitty felt like hurling, and Samantha was helping her come up with more ways for the Naruto cast to die.

"And so we take the kunai and- What the hell is going on?" Samantha asked as they entered the apartment. It looked like a flour bomb had exploded and covered the kitchen in well, flour. Seikai and Venus were nagging at Kite and Shikamaru, and Naruto was loudly complaining about Sasuke, and by the looks on everyone's faces, the two of them had been helping mix cookie dough and it had turned into a competition.

"Why am I not surprised?" Mandy remarked. "The village idiots strike again."

"What were you expecting?" Kitty asked. "For them to get along?"

"Damn Sasuke-bastard…" Naruto grumbled as he was handed a wet dishcloth and told by Seikai to start cleaning or else. Mandy began laughing hysterically when Sasuke was forced to join in, before grabbing a broom and sweeping the kitchen floor. She did make sure to hit Sasuke 'accidentally' over the head at least once before Seikai caught her and had her help pass out what cookies had survived the carnage.

"Okay, that's three for everybody, and Sasuke-prick and Neji-prick get the broken cookies." Mandy said casually as she finished passing out the cookies. It was tough, considering she made sure to be carrying her Frying Pan of Doom with her at all times.

"Why do we get the broken ones?" Sasuke asked. Mandy smiled sweetly at him, trying to remember how Sakura acted around him.

"Because I don't like you, you little emo-prick jerk."

"YES! A girl that doesn't like Sasuke-bastard!" Naruto cheered, jumping up from his seat on the floor. Mandy blinked. Samantha started laughing, and pounded her on the back.

"Dude, you look like a fricking goldfish!" Mandy almost choked on her cookie as she turned and glared at Samantha.

"What the hell was that for?!" she snapped.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please, feel free to read and review, though if you flame...the flames shall be used to keep us warm this winter. Constructive critism is appreciated though.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Again, we do not own Naruto, Slayers, Getbackers or Vampire Hunter D. If there is something I missed that is well known to everyone and I missed it, I do not own it. Actually I only own Kitty. The people who everyone else is based off of own themselves.

Ok, this is the third chapters, and to clear some things up, the group is based off of my real group of friends from college. Yes we really are that crazy when we are together.

And on with the bloody chapter already!

Chapter Three: Tribal Council

"Okay, people, listen up!" Seikai shouted, clapping her hands to emphasize. Everyone (well, almost everyone) sat down wherever there was room in the living/dining room. Kakashi slouched against the open doorway, for one. It all reminded Mandy of her first day in her junior high history class, where she had to sit on the floor because all the desks were taken. She wondered for a second if anyone else in the room had had a similar experience, but decided not to ask. After all, there was no telling how their visitors would react. "As you all know," Seikai continued, "We are going to be splitting our visitors among you for the Christmas break. This is important, as I don't have enough food or room for all of them."

"Obviously." Mandy mumbled as she reached into her purse/bookbag thing and pulled out a box of Pocky. 'We have a few characters here who eat like they're not gonna get another meal. And knowing Naruto, he'd eat all of the ramen.'

"So," Venus announced, grinning evilly, "Take your pick of who you're taking home., or we'll pick for you."

"I'll take Lina and Naga." Seikai stated.

"I'll take Naruto, Samantha, and Hinata." Mandy announced, a stick of Pocky hanging from her lips like a cigarette.

"...Are you sure that's a good idea?" Kyle asked. "You know Hinata likes-"

"Exactly!" Mandy interrupted. "It's fun to watch. Plus, Hina-chan and Naru-kun need to spend some time with a 'normal' family."

"Do you have enough room?" Seikai asked. Mandy nodded.

"We should. Just in case, though, one or two of them can stay at my Grandma's." Mandy nodded. "Yep, it'll be fine. I hope you guys like cats." she said to Naruto and Hinata.

Samantha grinned.

"I have a dead cat at home."

"GROSS!" Naruto yelled. "Why the hell would you have a dead cat?!" Samantha shrugged.

"It followed me home."

"...How did a dead cat get up and follow you home?" Ginji asked confusedly. Samantha's forehead was now twitching angrily.

"ITS GHOST FOLLOWED ME HOME! NOW ARE YOU HAPPY?" she roared. All conversation in the room ceased as everyone turned and stared at her.

"...Okaaaaaayy..." Seikai blinked, before attempting to get the topic, well, back on topic. "Kite!!" she shouted. Kite blinked awake from his seat on the couch.

"...Yes?"

"You get Shikamaru and Sasuke."

"Okay." And so it went on, while Mandy now pulled out her GBA and began playing Final Fantasy I.

"Hey!' Kitty grinned as she popped up beside her. "I got Lee and that Ban guy."

"Wow." Mandy drawled as her party began to fight Shinryu. "Isn't that nice."

"There's a forest by my house. Lee can pretty much spend the whole break training."

"Uh-huuhhhhhhh..."

"Are you even listening?"

"Multitasking." Mandy answered calmly as the deathblow was delivered. "Finally!" She exclaimed, saving her game before turning to face her friend. "Good for you."

"...You really don't care, do you?"

"Not really, no."

"Mandy, this is like one of the biggest things to ever happen to us!" Kitty protested as Mandy began munching on her pocky. "Heck, this is really important! Worlds have collided!"

"Yes, but is it a good thing?" Mandy asked as she held the pocky out to Naruto. "Does their chakra system work here?"

"Hinata used the Byakugen earlier, but it really wore her out." Naruto replied, as Pocky crumbs flew everywhere.

"Dude, say it, don't spray it!" Mandy snapped, gagging. Naruto stopped and stared. Mandy grabbed a kleenex and handed it to him. "Here, you have crumbs all over your face." She turned back to Kitty. "So, it looks like they deplete more chakra here than back in their world if they use any jutsus. That should make things simpler."

"Wait a minute, you mean I can't do any ninjutsu?" Now Naruto was panicking, and somewhere in the distance, Mandy heard Venus say that she was taking Orochimaru and Neji with her. 'Oh holy crap.' she thought, shaking her head. 'Those poor bastards have no idea what they're getting into.' Eventually, the whole "who gets who" situation was all cleared up, and Mandy, Kitty, and Kyle were discussing how they would break the news to their parents.

"Dude, you're stuck with Kakashi and Sakura for the break?" Mandy laughed as Kyle sighed dramatically, shaking his head. "Man, I feel sorry for you."

"Why?" Kitty asked, grabbing a stick of Pocky and biting it in half. Mandy held a finger up.

"One: Explaining to your parents that Kakashi isn't as old as he looks. I mean, he has gray hair, and he's only in his mid-twenties!"

"That guy from American Idol had grey hair, and he was pretty young." Kitty stated.

"Yeah, Mandy, I thought you watched American Idol."

"Just at the beginning. I like the awful singers."

"Okay…" Kyle drawled, "So what does this have to do with Kakashi?"

"He has grey hair."

"Alright… is there anything else?"

"Uh, yeah, the guy reads porn. He doesn't even try to hide it. I'm sure that'll really go over well with your family."

"That's true." Kitty remarked thoughtfully. In the background, Venus could be seen chasing Neji with a brush. "…" Kitty and her friends were temporarily speechless as Seikai joined in.

"Okaaaaaaaay…" Kyle stared as the sound of a door slamming announced the end of the chase. "Please tell me that that did not just happen." Neither Kitty or Mandy answered.

"Damn, it was real."

"Unfortunately." Mandy shuddered as Neji could be heard shouting something about hair ties before it went uncomfortably silent in the apartment. "How did I know something like this was going to happen?"

"I think we all knew something like this was going to happen." Brian sighed, head in hands. "They're probably going to dress him in drag or something."

"…Dress…in drag?" Hinata asked nervously. The rest of the Shinobi and the other characters turned pale. Hell, Orochimaru looked paler than usual, which, oddly, was pretty damn creepy.

"Yeah, they might put him in girls' clothes." Mandy explained, as Naruto looked confused, as usual. "Hell, Seikai has that Naga costume…"

"AGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!" The air was filled with a collective scream from the other members of the anime club, oddly, mostly the guys. There was the sound of a door opening, and Seikai stuck her head in the living room.

"What was that about?" she asked, noting how everybody was looking like that had just seen a ghost.

"Mandy said something about you guys, Neji, and a costume like Naga's…" Lina groaned as Naga began to say what great fashion sense they had if they admired her costume that much. Seikai grinned evilly.

"That's a great idea! Thanks, Mandy!" She withdrew from the room, and there was a muffled yell from the other room. Everyone turned as one and stared at Mandy, who had turned an interesting shade of red as she began banging her head against the wall. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid…" she mumbled between thumps, not caring that everyone (almost everyone, anyway, as Dave was on his computer) had turned around and focused on the TV that Kite, thankfully, had turned on. And that's how they passed the next hour, watching a Saturday Night Live 'Best of Chris Farley' special.

"What the hell is that?!" Naruto screeched as the infamous 'Chippendales' sketch came on. Several of the girls turned red as they stared at the screen while Patrick Swayze was dancing. Kyle briefly explained about what was going on…then Chris Farley started dancing. Once again, there was a collective scream, and Brian, from his seat in the corner, sighed, relieved that the neighbors were gone for the day.

While this was all going on, Mandy suddenly had a rather unwelcome thought about replacing the two on screen with Shinobi, and she had a pretty good idea of who would be in Chris Farley's place. She decided to not say anything, as she had definitely caused enough problems already (There was still the occasional thud coming from the spare room; apparently Neji was still putting up a fight, or, at least he was until Venus came out and asked if she could borrow Mandy's frying pan). Then Naruto (who had apparently been thinking the same thing as Mandy) announced that he could see Chouji in Chris Farley's place, and the whole room was filled with somewhat disturbed laughter.

"That's certainly an…interesting mental image." Kitty shuddered.

"Apparently me and Naruto think alike." Mandy said calmly.

"What, you thought that too?" Sakura asked.

"Where the hell did you come from?!" Mandy asked, bewildered as to how the kunoichi had popped up out of nowhere. 'Damn ninjas, always sneaking up you!' she thought angrily.

"I was sitting in front of you." Sakura answered. "You didn't notice?"

'**And beside Sasuke,' **Inner Sakura added. Thankfully, no one could hear her.

"Why would I notice someone sitting in front of me?" Mandy asked incredulously.

"How could you miss someone dressed in pink, with bright pink hair?" Ginji asked. The room fell silent, except for the faint chatter of Venus and Seikai as they debated over what to put on Neji.

"Dude." Mandy held a finger up in the air. "I go to an art school. So does everybody else in here." She waved towards the other anime club members as she said that last part. "We see all sorts of weird and unusual stuff almost daily, and we're used to it. Heck, Ashley has-" she stopped for a second. "Hey, where is Ashley? Wasn't she here earlier?"

"She couldn't make it." Wolfy, the club treasurer said flatly.

"Huh? I thought I saw her in the kitchen earlier." Mandy said confusedly.

"No, that was Sakura." Naruto said through a mouthful of Pocky.

"Huh." Mandy thought out loud. "I just assumed that Ashley changed her hair from green to pink. And who said you could eat all my pocky?"

"You said I could have some!" Naruto shouted defensively. "I already ate the Christmas cookies you gave me!"

"Okay, okay, geez!" Mandy groaned, rubbing her forehead with one hand and waving at him dismissively with the other. "God, you're gonna give me a headache!"

"And you never get headaches from listening to your headphones 24/7?" Kite asked as he munched on a cookie. "You're always wearing those whenever I see you."

"Hey, I like music, okay?" Mandy snapped. "And besides, you guys get louder than the music anyway!"

"So… what are you listening to?" Kyle asked.

"The Black Mages." There was a brief pause before almost every anime character asked:

"Who are they?"

"Never mind, now it's The Clash."

"You listen to The Clash?" Kyle asked.

"Yeah, I like classic rock and rock in general. You know, Queen, Metallica, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Green Day, Nightwish, Demons and Wizards, The Black Mages, the pillows, The Beatles and some of their spinoff bands, Eric Clapton-"

"All right, all right, we get the point." Kyle sighed, shaking his head. "Geez, that's a lot of music."

"And that's not all of it." Mandy finished, grinning.

"Wow." Naruto had now popped up beside Mandy and was staring at her MP3 player.

"All that music is in there?" Mandy smiled.

"Yep! And it's all on my laptop too. Speaking of which-" she got up and headed to the hallway where she had dumped her stuff after the whole mess with Orochimaru earlier. 'Where is it… Ah-hah!" she exclaimed as she grabbed her laptop and returned to the living room, where she plopped back into her seat. "Okay, kid, this is my computer." She said as she started it up.

"Wow, it's like those monitors they have at the chuunin exams!"

"So that's where you're at there right now." Mandy mumbled as she opened Windows Media Player, and put on her Final Fantasy playlist.

"Ooh! I remember this one!" Samantha laughed as The Black Mage's mix of 'Matoya's Cave' began.

"You play 'Final Fantasy'?" Kitty asked.

"We had the old SNES version when I was little. I used to watch my big sister play it." Samantha sighed. "Good times, good times. Mom used to get really angry at her because she'd be yelling and cursing at the screen during boss battles."

"So you've been playing it since the beginning?" Brian asked.

"Oh yes. We had almost every game console on the market, and two trunks worth of games. They were a lifesaver on those expeditions."

"…Huh?"

"Her family traveled the world when she was little because of her mom's job." Mandy explained. "Mom was an archaeologist." Samantha glared at her.

"It's a little unnerving when someone you've just met knows all about you."

"Well, I don't think I know everything about you. No, wait, do I? You're still a work in progress, so, yeah, I highly doubt I know absolutely everything about you."

"Can you please keep it down?" Brian sighed as Samantha was now looking like she wanted to kill someone, and they had just gotten the 'SNL: Best of Will Ferrell' DVD in. Mandy brightened up as soon as she looked at the TV.

"Ooh! Dude, let's watch the Kill Bill movies after this!"

"Really?" Samantha grinned. "AWESOME!"

"We may have to watch them with Japanese subtitles though."

"But we understand each other just fine." Kitty said, pretending to whine.

"Okay, we'll see if anyone has trouble understanding the movies. And if anyone does, then we use the subtitles."

"Subtitles for what?" Venus asked suddenly. Everyone looked up to see Seikai, Venus, and a very angry looking Neji in the doorway.

"Oh, we're gonna watch the Kill Bill movies." Kyle answered.

"Oh, ok." Seikai shrugged. "Okay, Neji-kun, go and play with your friends or something." She lightly pushed him into the room as she said this, before turning around and asking Venus something about 'the pictures'. Then they left again, leaving everyone silent, and staring at Neji like he had grown a third eye or something.

"**WHAT?!" **he snapped loudly, causing Hinata to wince, and Mandy to shudder.

"Damn, it must've been bad." She muttered. Kitty nodded.

"Knowing Seikai and Venus, it must've been torture."

"I don't wanna know." Kyle grumbled as Neji sat down by the couch and stared at the TV.

Again, we hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you have any comments or questions, please ask away. If you are here to flame, then all your flames shall be used to roast Naga and Lina's dinner.


	4. Chapter 4

Fourth chapter here! Does anyoen care that I dont know of? I dont know. Anyways, lets get the disclaimer out of the way, and on to the story.

Disclaimer: We do not own Naruto, Getbackers, Slayers, Vampire Hunter D, any food brands mentioned, any copywrited videogame series, Kill Bill, Miramax, and probably a couple of other things I forgot to mention. But if you can buy it in a store, we dont own it.

Note: _Italics_ are thinking..incase you didnt know.

Chapter Four: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

"Dude, I haven't seen these movies for a while." Mandy grinned as the Miramax logo came up. It was a little strange, due to the fact that it was a small TV, and everyone was crowded around it.

"But it's hard to see from back here." Naga said confusedly. Mandy stared at her for a second, noting that both her and Lina had taken seats as close to the kitchen as they could get.

"Uh, Naga? These movies are reeealllly violent, and there's a LOT of blood." Now the "Feature Presentation" was on. Naga turned white, then got up and practically ran out of the room, knocking Naruto and Kite over as she passed.

"What's her problem?" someone asked. Mandy turned around and blinked at the person asking the question.

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

"…"

"Just kidding!" Mandy laughed, pounding Shikamaru on the back and laughing. "She's afraid of blood. Don't ask me why, I'm not sure myself."

"You know about that, too?" Lina Inverse asked, curious in spite of herself. Shikamaru boredly got up and walked into the kitchen, where he could be heard opening the fridge and rummaging around inside. Mandy shrugged.

"There are a lot of theories floating around, but nothing's really been confirmed officially."

Meanwhile:  
"Bill….it's your bab-" **BANG! **The sound of the gunshot made everybody jump.

"HE SHOT HER!" Naruto screeched, causing everyone to cringe. "HE SHOT HER!" Lee then joined in the shouting ("THIS BILL LACKS THE POWER OF YOUTH, IF HE CAN SHOOT HIS CHILD'S MOTHER SO HEARTLESSLY!"), and what made the whole situation funny, in a demented, blood-soaked sort of way, was that Lee meant every word of it. This went on for a few minutes, until Samantha, brow twitching angrily, decided she had had enough.

"EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP NOW OR I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU!" she roared, standing up and grabbing Seikai's katanas from their spot on the faux fireplace. The room fell silent, except for the Bride yelling at Buck for him to tell her where Bill was between slamming his head in the hospital door.

"Okay, now I'm reeeeallly glad the neighbors aren't here." Seikai stared as Samantha sat back down, holding the katanas in her lap.

"What the hell was that about?" Kyle whispered. Mandy sighed.

"Remember how I said Samantha has an anger problem?"

"Hyeah…."

"Well, she gets like Gaara sometimes."

A pause. "Oh. So we're stuck in a crowded apartment with a psychopath."

"Yeah, pretty much." Mandy patted him on the back. "Don't worry; hopefully she'll kill off Kakashi, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru before she gets to us."

"What do you have against me, anyway?" Kakashi asked from behind his porn.

"I just don't like you." Mandy shrugged. "You're creepy."

"And what about Orochimaru?" Kyle asked.

"He's terrifying."

"…" Sasuke may have been silent through this whole ordeal, but in his mind, he was coming up with ways to make that woman with the swords shut up. What was with her, anyway? That 'Mandy' girl had compared her to something called 'Eva 01', and judging from several of their hosts' expressions, this was a bad thing, especially with the reassurance that she wouldn't eat them. Was she a cannibal? Some part of him wondered if she would kill his brother for him, but an image of Itachi floating face-down in a pot of boiling, blood-saturated water crossed his mind, before being replaced with a bowl of ramen, which was then eaten by Naruto. He shook his head as the insane images continued. God, he'd only been in this hell-hole for three hours and he was already going mad! What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he be back at home in his, peaceful, deathly silent estate where he could train nonstop? Why did he have to be stuck with all these-these losers?

"Oi, Sasuke-bastard, you okay?" Naruto asked, staring at his friend/rival/whatever the hell he was at the moment. The Uchiha boy was sitting in the corner, head pressed against his knees, and- was he mumbling to himself? "SASUKE-BASTARD'S POSSESSED!"

"Can I kill him?" Samantha asked no one in particular as Naruto began screaming about ghosts, and 'snake-fags' until Kakashi knocked him out. No one paid any attention, though, and the movie marathon was over.

"Doesn't insanity run in Sasuke's family?" Mandy wondered aloud as 'J-E-N-O-V-A' began playing. Fortunately, no one was paying attention. Thank god. She felt like she'd caused enough trouble that night. Neji was still in the corner, and was casting death glares at anyone who tried to talk to him. _'I hope this doesn't affect him in the long run. God, what if we screw up their future or something? The fans'll kill us, especially the fangirls. Heh. Now I wish I had gotten one of Sei-chan's T-shirts at the con last year. Fear the Fangirls. That is so true, it isn't funny. But yeah, this could be bad. About the most we can do is tell them to do whatever they normally do when they get home, and do their best to forget about us. Or ignore us. Yeah, forgetting might be a good thing. I have a feeling they'll want to forget as much of this as they can. But I don't think Samantha's dad has the technology for erasing memories, but maybe if they could be buried…yeah, like in Spirited Away! Just because you can't remember something doesn't mean it never happened!'  
_

"-Lo? Hellooo?" She blinked as she noticed that Kitty was waving her hand in her face.

'_Aw geez, I spaced out again.' _She stared at her friend, noticing that Kyle, Hinata, Naruto, Lee, Samantha, and Kakashi were staring at her. _'This is so wrong in so many ways.' _  
"What?" she snapped angrily, wishing she had some sharp object to threaten them with. _'Wait, the ninjas have sharp things pointed at them almost daily, they probably won't be affected that much. Dammit. _

"Well, Seikai wants us to leave, as we seem to have driven Sasuke and a few of our other guests into a homicidal rage." Kyle drawled.

"Dude, they're ninjas. They're almost always homicidal." Mandy shrugged. "How else are they supposed to be? Friendly, polite, live in the sewers?"

"Okay, now that's just insulting." Kakashi looked like he was glaring. _'Ooh, scary. The masked Cyclops speaks! Or maybe he isn't a Cyclops, maybe he's a fucking robot!' _

"**Can it, Kuchisake Kakashi!" **she screeched, throwing her GBA, beaning him in the face. There was an awkward silence.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Naruto screamed, pointing at her. "YOU HIT KAKASHI SENSEI!" Everyone turned and stared at the sensei in question, who was staring at the GBA like it was one of the most interesting things he had ever seen.

"What? He was asking for it! Now can you people get out of the way so I can fucking go HOME ALREADY?" Mandy finally snapped. She had to shove her way past Naga (who had finally come out of the back room to see what was going on) and a very freaked out looking Ginji to get her shoes on and grab her coat. _'Aggh, I wish I could've just gone home today! I hate this! Hatehatehatehatehate!' _

Back in the living room:

"….What the hell was that about?" Jiraiya asked as Mandy returned and packed up her laptop. Kyle shrugged.

"I'd say she finally snapped."

"It's always the quiet ones." Kitty sighed, nodding sagely as Mandy grabbed her backpack and purse, and then left. The apartment door slammed violently, and at least two pictures fell off the wall.

"And how old is she?"

"Oh, we're all in the twenty to twenty-two age range."

"I think we just met this world's equivalent to Anko." Kakashi shuddered, then brightened up. "Hey, it's still working!"

"What?"

"This." He held up the GBA as the Final Fantasy I & II title screen came up. He began randomly pushing buttons.

"I can give it to her when I leave." Kitty sighed. She turned around and did a double take.

"You're playing Mandy's Final Fantasy game?"

"No, I started a new one."

"…." _No wonder Mandy got so pissed…' _Kyle thought as Kakashi sat down on the tiny couch (forgetting that it was rather low to the floor, so he actually fell a few inches before actually sitting down next to a disturbed Kite) and began playing.

"Hey, wait a minute." Brian looked around for a second. "Where'd Samantha go?"

Two blocks away:

"Hey!" Samantha shouted, running up to Mandy, who seemed to be having a relatively hard time walking fast due to all the weight. Maybe it was the extra snow that had been falling all day. "You going home?"

"I'm going back to my apartment, yes." Mandy yawned. 'God, I'm tired.'

"How far away is it?"

"Hmmm…" Mandy thought. "Well, considering that it's easier for me to find my way back home from Sei-chan's, and I always get lost coming to Sei-chan's, I'd say about, fifteen to twenty minutes." She yawned again, making a barely audible cracking sound.

'Damn jawbone.'

"…I'll carry your laptop for you, then." Samantha smiled. "Hey, do you think they bought it?"

Now it was Mandy's turn to be confused. "…Bought what?" _'Oh god, being in the 'real world' must've made her delusional.'_

"The whole 'psycho' act I did back there." Samantha's smile was really big, and hard not to notice. _'God, please don't let her do that freaky Gai-Sensei smile thing.' _

"You mean that was an act?" _'WTF? Then again…' _

"Well, yeah! It wouldn't exactly be nice if I started killing people. But it did get them to shut up."

"Dude, didn't you hear me in there? They're ninjas. They make a living killing people. And if that one kid was there, you would've ended up dead."

"…I have no idea who you're talking about." Samantha frowned. "This thing is heavy."

"Well, there's the laptop, the AC Adaptor, and some books in there."

"How many books?"

"Two."

"This thing has to weigh 20 pounds!" Samantha complained.

"Well, you can relax when we get back to my place." Mandy sighed as they made it to the main road they had to cross. "See, we just have to cut across the park and go over another street to make it. And you can get on the internet and do research on the ninjas."

"You know a lot about them, why don't you just tell me?"

"I know enough, and there's a lot of information I can't divulge."

"Lemme guess;" Samantha asked sarcastically, "You'll get killed if you say anything."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Damn, that sucks."

"Tell me about it."

Back at Seikai's apartment:

"Ok, so Samantha went after Mandy?" Kyle asked incredulously. "Are you sure that's a good thing? I mean, she threatened to kill us earlier."

"She was talking to Naruto and Lee." Shikamaru spoke up from where he was lounging in the small armchair. "That should've been obvious."

"…That's certainly true." Lina grumbled as she munched on her fiftieth (or was it her hundredth?) cookie that night. "Those guys are louder than Naga."

"That's a little too true." Seikai laughed. "Where was Naga during all that, anyway?"

"She was in the back room." Shikamaru lazily pointed towards the hallway. "Something about not liking blood."

"It's a good thing we didn't get too far in the movie, then."

"Is it that bad?"

"Oh yes." Kitty said, nodding. "It's like, seeing what goes through Mandy's head while

she listens to music."

"…What?"

"Oh, she comes up with ideas for writing, drawing, and even videos while she listens to music. Heck, she started work on this one video once she got that computer of hers." She laughed. "I've seen it, it's very violent. Lots of blood and gore."

There was a collective silence as the shinobi and everyone else took this bit of information in.

"So… she's a psycho?" Naruto asked, eyes widening. "I'm going to be staying with a psycho?"

"For two weeks." Seikai held two fingers up for emphasis.

"TWO WEEKS?!" Naruto screamed, throwing the cookie he was eating at the smiling club leader. It hit her right between the eyes. "ME AND HINATA-CHAN ARE GOING TO LIVE WITH A PSYCHO FOR TWO WEEKS?"

"Nice aim." Kitty commented as Seikai began wiping stray cookie crumbs off her face.

"But, no, Mandy isn't a psycho. You guys just tend to…bring out the worst in her."

"But we haven't even done anything to her." Sakura protested, taking a sideways glance at Sasuke, who had finally calmed down and was looking out the window disinterestedly.

"She's weird that way." Kyle shrugged. "If you want any details, you should probably ask her."

"Whoa, you weren't kidding about that whole 'secrecy' thing these guys have going on." Samantha stated as she scrolled through the Wikipedia pages for the Naruto series. "Huh. I knew there was something funny about that Naruto kid. I had no idea it was like-"

"Just to be safe, don't say anything." Mandy interrupted from her seat on the bed, where she was reading 'The Last Unicorn'. "For all we know, they decided to follow us back here."

"…Somehow I doubt that." Samantha muttered from the small sofa. "So nobody else knows?"

"Dude," Mandy stared at her friend like she was nuts. "Naruto is one of the most popular anime and manga out right now. They have no secrets here, everybody knows them. Hell, it's a wonder that so many of the characters haven't noticed at least one of the secrets. And since the poster they came off of was from the first series, it's like time travel or something."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that from reading some of this stuff."

"Uh-huh. Oh shit."

"What?"

"I just remembered that I should really call my parents and tell them I'm bringing some friends over for the holidays." Mandy gasped. "Oh god, this is gonna be difficult."

"Why?"

"Dude, how would you tell your parents that you're bringing some extra dimensional visitors home, and that one of them has… issues? They know when I'm lying!"

"…" Samantha just stared as Mandy began to freak out. _'If someone had told me that the one that created me was a spazmatic college student before all this, I would have laughed. I can't believe how…normal this all seems.' _

"Oh dear god, Naruto acts just like Brian when the ADHD was at its worst! God, we were at each others' throats back then, with the kicking, screaming, hitting, and throwing stuff at each other… The Thomas trains hurt the most, and yet they were the most fun to throw." She turned and asked, "Did you ever have fights like that with your family?"

"You created me, you should know." Samantha blinked confusedly.

"I know a lot about you, but I don't know everything about you." Mandy sighed. "It's like Calvin and Hobbes. You ever read that?"

"Yeah, I have that three book complete set."

"Lucky. Well, you know about 'The Noodle Incident' and that bedtime story Calvin has his Dad read to him?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the basic ideas of those things are given to the reader, it's the specifics that are left to the imagination. To put it simply, I know the basics about you, but I don't know all the details. The character writes him/herself, and not even the creator has complete control. Hell, that's one of the rules of life, both real and fictional: One person cannot have total control over others. I mean-"

"Okay, I get it, I get it." Samantha sighed, waving her hand dismissively. "You sound like my dad whenever he tries to explain one of his projects."

"Oh yeah." Mandy laughed. "I forgot about him."

"How can you forget someone you created?" Samantha asked, raising an eyebrow curiously. Mandy shrugged as she returned to reading her book.

"I'm like that with everyone. It's nothing personal, it's just that I'm bad at remembering names and faces."

"Everyone?" Samantha stared. "Even your own family?"

"Yep, especially the relatives I never see." Mandy grinned as she said this. "It's always awkward, because they remember me and I have no idea who the hell they are."

"I'm sure it's difficult for you." Samantha sighed as she continued scrolling through the Wikipedia pages on Naruto. "Whoa, Sasuke has an older brother?"

"Yep. Itachi's like a younger version of John List." Mandy sighed. Samantha blinked.

"Who's John List?" Mandy sighed.

"Dude, you're on one of the largest online encyclopedias ever, and they have information on almost everything. Why don't you look him up?" Samantha nodded, and typed away. Her eyes widened.

"**Holy #&ing crap!" **she exclaimed, face paling. "He… he killed his entire family and no one noticed?" Mandy nodded.

"Not for a month, anyway. Hell, when Itachi murdered everyone in his family, the people in charge of Konohagure decided to cover it up and tell the non-shinobi public that they all died in an accident. Yep, that shows how much they care when they fail to tell their people that a mass-murderer is on the loose."

"Wow. You really don't like these guys, do you?"

"Ninja policies never work out well. Everybody has to die in the end."

"That sounds pretty depressing." Samantha commented dryly.

"Well, yeah. Everybody in the show is a mess. Like the guys from Evangelion."

"…That's pretty sad."

"For the last time;" Kitty sighed, exasperated as Naruto was still freaking out about him and Hinata going home with the club's 'resident psycho', "Mandy is NOT going to kill you or Hinata!"

"Yeah," Kyle interjected, grinning evilly. "She'd rather kill Kakashi than you."

"And why would she like to kill me, anyway?" Kakashi asked from the battle with Lich, the Fiend of Earth.

"Yes, please explain that little factor." Orochimaru spoke up from the kitchen doorway, startling everyone. Kite dropped the book he was reading.

"What were you doing in there?" Seikai narrowed her eyes. "You better not've poisoned any of our food!"

"Why would I do that?" he asked calmly, watching with amusement as the other Shinobi drew their weapons and prepared for a fight. "I have to eat too, you know."

"He has a point." Kyle shrugged.

"Okay, this is just weird." Wolfy remarked as an uneasy calm settled in the room. Kitty blinked, then remembered something.

"Oh, right. Naruto," she called. The hyperactive ninja blinked and turned, noodles dangling from his mouth. 'What else is new?'

"Yeah?" he asked, in a muffled voice, noodle bits flying everywhere as he spoke.

"I'm going to head over to the apartments. You, Sakura, Lee (she pretended not to notice Sakura's grimace at this) and Hinata can come over and get to know Mandy better." Seeing the wary look on his face (think whenever Gai and Lee get all 'youthful'), she added "Don't worry, she's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, even if she can get a little psychotic at times."

Back at Mandy's apartment, Mandy and Samantha were happily watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and cheering whenever a Nazi died, even throwing popcorn at the portable DVD player ("Take that, Nazi scum! Mwahahahahaha!") occasionally. Therefore, they were surprised when there was a knock on the door.

"Whatcha doin'?" Kitty asked as Naruto, Lee, Sakura and Hinata peered into the relatively messy apartment. Samantha waved and cheered as the bald Nazi got chopped up by the Flying Wing. Mandy grinned.

"Watching Nazis suffer!" Kitty returned the grin.

"That's always fun."

"Yeah, death to the slime of humanity!" Mandy cheered.

"Are you sure Naruto and Hinata will be okay with her?" Sakura asked flatly. Kitty rolled her eyes.

"For the last time, yes, they'll be fine."

"B-but y-y-y-you said she d-d-doesn't like s-s-shinobi." Hinata stuttered. Mandy sighed.

"I'm not a big fan of Shinobi policies and how they handle things, Hinata. I don't have anything against you or Naruto-kun." She looked over at Naruto, who was staring at Mandy's manga collection with fascination (thankfully, there were a few in Japanese), before looking back at Hinata and grinning. "So," Mandy declared, pointing skyward dramatically in a move too reminiscent of Gai and Lee that Sakura felt like screaming (actually, Mandy was acting more like Amelia from Slayers, but they wouldn't know that), "As long as I am around him, Naruto shall be my unofficial little brother!"

"WHAT?!" Sakura shouted, joined by Naruto ("Wow, surround sound." Kitty remarked). Mandy waved her hands at them dismissively.

"Yeah, yeah, keep it down, OK? There's still some neighbors around here, and we're probably disturbing them."

A few minutes later in Kitty's top floor apartment, the small group was having a meeting. Kitty was chattering away with Lee, while Mandy and Naruto had left the room and-went into the bathroom? This thought quickly disintegrated as something caught her attention.

"Hey…" she asked Sakura cautiously, "Is there any chance that Jiraiya would have followed us?" Sakura paled considerably.

"…Why?"

"I saw something move over on the roof of the building next door."

In the bathroom:

"So, why are we in here?" Naruto asked. Mandy stared at him like he was an idiot.

"It's like, the only place in a house where you can get privacy. Besides," she said as she put the toilet cover down and sat on it, "What I am about to say is confidential."

"…" Naruto had a feeling he knew what was coming and he silently stared at the floor.

'No…she couldn't possibly…'

"Naruto;" Mandy started quietly, "I know about the Kyuubi no Youko." Naruto's eyes widened and he stood still, panicked. Mandy stared at him. "…You okay?"

"H-how?" he started stammering, obviously freaked out. Mandy rolled her eyes as she got up and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Dude, your world is a comic book and TV show here. Everybody knows about it. And you know what?" she asked cheerfully ('How can she be happy about this?" Naruto wondered) "They don't care. Dude, most of them would vote for you as Hokage if they could. You have a gift, kid, and it may be a curse at times, but it will help and hinder you throughout your life." To Naruto's embarrassment, Mandy bent down to face his stomach and-"You listening, Kyuubi-Dono? Take care of Naruto-nii. He won't always have his friends to help him out."

This was interrupted by Kitty knocking on the door, then opening it to this curious sight.

"Is his stomach okay?" she asked quietly. Naruto stared at her.

"She knows too?" he whispered. Mandy nodded.

"We all do here." She said quietly, patting his head. "And we don't give a fuck."

"Do you always have to swear like that?" Kitty sighed. "By the way, Mandy, it looks like Jiraiya followed us here."

"Really?"

On the roof of the apartment building next door:

"I'm telling you, Kakashi, there's something funny going on there!" Jiraiya was saying as he and Kakashi watched the goings-on in Kitty's apartment (she had one of those big apartments that had sliding glass doors and a balcony, so peeping was unusually easy for the perverts).

"Like what?" Kakashi asked as the infamous Victory Song played again.

"You're _still_ playing that?" Jiraiya asked, before his attention was diverted back to the apartment. "…What are they doing in there?"

"What do you mean?" Kakashi asked lazily.

"That psycho girl just dragged Naruto into another room and shut the door." A perverted grin spread across Jiraiya's face and just as he was about to start spouting off some perverted nonsense -

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PERVERTS DOING!" Mandy screeched from Kitty's balcony. A closer look revealed that she had a pair of binoculars around her neck.

"N-Nothing?" Jiraiya shouted back. Samantha and Kitty had also appeared, Samantha was holding a large kitchen knife and Kitty had a hammer.

"Now you're in for it." Kakashi grinned.

"She said perverts! Plural!" Jiraiya snapped.

We'll just leave it up to the readers to imagine what happened next. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

And that was an interesting chapter. I almost feel sorry for Jiraiya and kakashi...almost. Well please read and review. Though flames shall be used to melt the ice from my car in this negative degree weather. later!


	5. Chapter 5

Yes! The next chapter is now up! And thank you to the few of you who actually reviewed. It is much appreciated. Anyways, here is the next chapter for your pleasure and enjoyment.

Disclaimer: We do not own any Anime or its characters represented in this story. If you see a brand name of any kind, we dont own it. All we own are Kitty and Mandy...and my ps2 and copy of kingdom hearts. Other than that, we dont own anything.

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Five: Country Roads, Take Me Home

After the initial chaos died down (all the shouting had woken up at least three of Kitty's neighbors), everyone, including the perverts, sat down in Kitty's living room.

"It's so quiet without your roommates around." Mandy commented, looking at the space where their computers used to be.

"Yep." Kitty remarked from where she was sitting in front of her PS2, walking Naruto through Kingdom Hearts. "No more Warcraft."

"No teamspeak. Denied." Mandy laughed. Everyone stared at her. "What? None of you have ever seen Wayne's World?" Nobody answered. "Goddammit. I can't believe I asked that."

"Mandy, you really need to think before you speak." Kitty commented dryly as Naruto tried to race against Riku. Mandy wasn't listening, as she was rummaging through her mini-bookbag-purse thing, before pulling out a small, ringing device.

"Damn family, always interrupting." She mumbled before flipping the cell phone open.  
"Hi Mom." Everyone in the room could hear a faint "Hi Mandy" on the other end. "Yeah, I'm fine. Yes, I'm about 75 packed. How's Seppy?"

"Seppy's her cat." Kitty said helpfully to the others as Mandy continued on about random things.

"Uh-huh. Anyway, we have a bit of a situation. The anime club has some special guests over, and they don't have a place to stay." A pause. "Yes, we are taking some home. I'm sure we have room, Ma. I can sleep on the couch. For Christ's sake, Mom, two of them are twelve years old! What? They're child prodigies! Uh-huh. Yeah, don't worry, the oldest of them is sixteen. And if we really don't have room, they can stay at Grandma's. Duh." Another pause. "Yeah, can I talk to Brian?"

"Who is she talking to?" Naruto asked.

"Her mom." Kitty answered. "Apparently, she needs to talk to her brother."

"Hey, Brian?" Mandy asked. "Yeah, so you heard? Uh-huh, yeah, we are having some kids over. And I need you to do something for me. I want you to go in my room and get my stash of magazines from under the bed." She nodded, ignoring the looks she was getting from everyone else. "Yep. Issues two and up of Shonen Jump. What, you thought I was gonna say something different? I had 'em under my bed because I needed the box. You know, the one I made in Woodshop? Uh-huh, anyway, just read 'em, and don't say anything about it to Mom. You can tell Dad, though. This is a strictly 'need-to-know' matter, and it needs to stay that way. Okay, give the phone to Dad and get reading!" She shook her head before snapping back into the conversation. "Oh, hi Dad. What time? Oh, 1 o'clock is nice. Yes, I'll make sure that I'm up by then. That's it? Okay, bye." She snapped the phone then looked up at the others cheerfully. "Man, I thought they would never shut up!" she grinned. Everyone stared at her.

"Who was that?" Sakura asked, pointing at the phone.

"Oh, that was just my family calling. We're going home tomorrow."

"…We?"

"Me, Samantha, Hina-chan, and Naruto-nii."

"…'Naruto-nii'?" Jiraiya and Kakashi asked simultaneously. Mandy nodded.

"Yeah. Why, is that a problem?"

"No, it's just…you don't seem like the 'big sister' type."

"Well, I can't say that I'm the best big sister, but I already have a little brother back home."

"Really?" Kakashi asked. "And what's he like?" Mandy thought for a minute.

"Quiet, likes music, plays drums and guitar, and he can be pretty damn stupid sometimes." There was a pause after this bit of information was revealed.

"That doesn't help much."

"For the love of god, shut up." Mandy rolled her eyes before sitting down to watch Naruto wander around Traverse Town. "Wow, that conversation took longer then I thought."

* * *

Later that night, Mandy was trying to sleep on a makeshift bed…in the bathtub. She had her star-shaped 'mooshy' pillow, an extra blanket, and some clean towels working as a mattress. Hinata was in Mandy's bed (by Naruto's insistence), while Naruto was half-asleep on the loveseat, and Samantha was staring at the door to the apartment with a glare. It shouldn't be needless to say that none of them really got much sleep that night. Mandy actually had to leave the bathroom several times due to it being needed. On the third of these trips, she finally asked Samantha why she wasn't sleeping. 

"We're being watched."

"Really?"

"Yes. It seems that 'Kuchisake Kakashi' is around."

"Dude, that's not really his name."

"Then why did you call him that?" Samantha asked pointedly.

"Because he looks like the 'Kuchisake Onna'."

"…He looks like a woman?"

"No. You see, it's this Japanese urban legend from the seventies. There's this woman who dresses all in black, who wears a mask or veil to hide her face, and she carries a wheat sickle or some other sharp object. According to the stories, she stands on street corners, and asks passersby: "Watashi Kirei?", or in English: "Am I pretty?" Well, she'll ask it again after your first answer, before she takes off the mask, asking "Do you really think I'm pretty?" And that's when it's revealed that her face has been slit open from ear to ear."

"That's really….freaky." Samantha blinked. "There's stories like that in Hawaii."

"I've heard."

"By the way…where was her face cut open?"

"Her lips."

"…Ugh."

"I know."

"So…that's what you think is under that Kakashi guy's mask?"

"Heh, I wish. He's just another pretty-boy."

"So you've already seen it?"

"…Got two Japanese issues of Jump at a con earlier this year. Big fight coming up."

"Oh. Something secret?"

"Duh. One of my friends was wondering if I was expecting him to have a buncha tattoos or piercings all over his face. I was disappointed."

"…You are one really weird girl."

"I try."

"You try?" Samantha asked incredulously. Mandy shrugged.

"I have my moments."

It was 12:30 in the afternoon. Mandy, Naruto, Hinata, and Samantha were waiting in front of the Cherry Lane Apartments, as the snowplows drove by. Mandy had supplied gloves for everyone, and she was wearing her new blue knit gloves, while Hinata had the brown suede mittens. Samantha was wearing blue suede gloves, and Naruto…

He was stuck with the bright pink glove/mitten set. It clashed horribly with his bright outfit, so he kept his hands in his pockets, complaining about "evil older sisters" as Mandy ignored him. 'Bouken Desho Desho' was playing in her ears, and she couldn't help but agree silently that this was indeed an adventure, even if there was no extreme ninja action or limbs flying everywhere.

"And we can't have that." She spoke aloud.

"Huh?"

"Just talking to myself."

"Oi. Idiot." Mandy jumped as Sasuke's voice cut through the frigid air. Kyle, Kakashi, Sakura, Shikamaru and Kite were all standing behind them. _'Oh yeah, aren't Sasuke and Shikamaru going with Kite for the break?'_ Naruto glared at Sasuke, while Sakura got that look on her face.

'**Stupid Naruto, always pissing off Sasuke!' **Inner Sakura shrieked, waving her arms around.

"Oi, Sakura!´ Naruto shouted, waving enthusiastically. Sasuke quirked an eyebrow. Kakashi and the others began laughing hysterically. "What? What's so funny?"

"Naruto-nii."

"What?"

"It's the mittens." Mandy said, calmly pointing at his hands. Naruto blinked for a second, before he finally realized what she was talking about.

"What's with the mittens?" Kite asked wearily.

"Oh, I distributed all my gloves out to everyone and those were the only ones I had left for Naruto-nii."

"…Naruto-nii?" Kite now looked like he had seen a ghost. Or like he had just eaten something nasty. Either way, he looked a little freaked out, what with all the blinking. So did everybody else (well, except Kakashi. There was really no way of telling how he felt about the whole mess).

"Yeah, he's now my unofficial little brother."

"…Evil big sister…" Naruto mumbled. Mandy grinned and ruffled his hair.

"I know."

"They really look like brother and sister." Kyle thought aloud as Mandy picked up a handful of snow and dumped it on Naruto's head. Naruto, of course, retaliated and started throwing snowballs. Before they knew it, everyone except Sasuke, Sakura, Shikamaru, and Kite had joined in the fight. Of course, it got crazier once Kitty, Lee, and Ban came out to see them off, and got dragged in.

"Dude, we should, like, put kunai in these!" Mandy held up a snowball to demonstrate.

"Or we could just use an icicle."

"That wouldn't be fair!" Naruto shouted as he tossed one at Kakashi, who was once again reading his porn.

"Really?"

"No!" Ban smacked Mandy across the back of her head. "Where do you get these ideas from?"

"…Internet?" Mandy shrugged, then grinned as a large snowball hit Ban in the face. She ducked beside the overflowing clothesbasket she had brought out with her and pretty much used that as her fort.

"What the hell is going on?" a familiar voice asked. The fight stopped.

"Hi Dad!" Mandy waved. "Can you get the laundry for me?"

A few minutes later everyone was in the truck. Mandy was in the front passenger seat, Naruto sat in the middle in the back, and Hinata and Samantha sat on opposite sides of him. Mandy had popped in a CD of comedy songs and was happily singing along to a song called "Beer Run" while her father just chuckled. Everyone had seen them off, and Kakashi had apparently said something to Mandy that made her scream "GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU LAZY-EYED PSYCHO!!" and throw a pop bottle at him. Thankfully everyone was taking the truck ride well. Hinata looked really red, but then again, she was sitting next to Naruto, so there was no surprise there.

"She feeling okay?" Keith O'Riley asked Mandy.

She looked back at Hinata before calmly answering "Eh, she'll be fine. This is normal for her."

"You sure? She looks like she's gonna pass out."

"Dad. Trust me on this one. It's nothing to worry about."

"I'm hungry." Naruto announced.

"I thought you ate some ramen this morning." Mandy sighed.

"Yeah, around five hours ago."

"…"

"I'm hungry too." Samantha remarked. "How about you, Hinata-chan?"

"It's four to one, Dad." Mandy grinned at her now laughing dad. "Let's stop by a McDonalds."

"Do they have ramen?" Naruto asked curiously.

"No. And just to be safe, that is NOT all you'll be eating at my house." Mandy stated.

"Mom'll kill me."

"He must really like ramen, huh?" Keith asked.

"You have NO idea." Mandy rolled her eyes. "We'll have to stop by World Market tomorrow and get some stuff."

"Like what?"

"Japanese rice, noodles, spices, chopsticks, curry, some candy…"

"Candy?"

'Yeah. They have a TON of Asian food there, including candy. We'll really need to stock up on the noodles. You need a variety. Chow mein, yakisoba, udon, curry…"

'At least she's taking this seriously.' Keith thought as he watched his daughter rattle of a small grocery list.

* * *

And thats the end of the fifth chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. If not, well, if you cant say something nice, shut your trap. And I apologize to any and all Kakashi fans reading this story for the abuse that Mandy puts him though. 

As always, please review. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Flamers however will be fed to Monster of AARRGHH... from Monty Python.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Same as the other pages. We do not own Naruto or anyone or anything from there. We dont own McDonalds, or Burger King. We only own the original characters.

Note: **Bold** is the Kyuubi talking, and _Italics_ is thinking.

* * *

Chapter Six: Take the Long Way Home 

It had been five minutes since the gang had left the McDonalds™, and all was not well. You see, they had had to go through the drive through (Mandy's idea, and her dad agreed, due to the fact that he was starting to get why Mandy had had him and her brother flip through those magazines the night before), and Naruto, much to Mandy's chagrin, ate everybody's fries.

'Dammit.' Mandy thought to herself as she stared at what was left of her large order of fries. 'I love McDonalds' fries. Hell, put them together with a Burger King™ burger, and you've got one great fast food meal.' "Goddammit."

"Calm down, Mandy." Keith O'Riley grinned, taking a big bite out of his Big Mac. "It's not the end of the world."

"Everything bothers you." Mandy answered grinning. This was a private joke in their family, thanks to a taped phone conversation that her dad had made of one of his friends talking with his wife on the phone (made even funnier by the one-sidedness of the conversation).

"What?"

"We're not talking to you, Naruto-nii." Mandy sighed, taking a big bite out of her double cheeseburger with just ketchup. "It's something you wouldn't understand."

"Why not?"

"It's a family friend thing."

"…Oh."

"Don't worry, Naruto-nii, we'll fill ya in once we find the tape."

"Okay."

"So….what's with the headbands?" Keith asked. "Are they some sort of gang thing?" Mandy cut off Naruto's answer.

"No, Dad, they're frigging fruity pirate hats." They all stared at her as she started laughing.

"Did we…miss something?" Samantha asked. Mandy nodded.

"Yes."

"Thought so."

"Yep. Doesn't surprise me." Naruto nodded exaggeratedly. "She acts like Kakashi-Sensei."

This little remark resulted in Keith O'Riley swerving to avoid traffic as he tried to break up the ensuing squabble, during which Mandy lost the rest of her French fries ("CURSE YOU AND YOUR NINJA SPEED!"), and Hinata and Samantha got food all over them.

"…I've heard of the Mack the Knife" sandwich, but this is ridiculous." Keith complained after they pulled over to assess the damage. His Big Mac had a Kunai through the middle.

"So you're really a ninja?"

"Yes, Dad, he's a ninja. Just a little toy soldier for the Daimyo,"

"Toy soldier?"

"…Never mind,." Mandy shook her head, staring at the ground. "That's all it amounts to, in the end."

"Nani? What's wrong?" Naruto asked. Mandy just looked up at the kid who was walking back and forth between the truck and the garbage can at the rest stop (Hinata was actually helping, and Samantha was making sure Hinata didn't end up fainting). She shrugging.

"Nothing." Naruto frowned, before slipping on the remains of Samantha's medium Coke.

"How long is this road trip gonna TAKE?" Mandy sighed. Keith patted her on the back.

"We have a half-hour to go now."

"Thank god." Mandy smiled. "I don't think I can take much more of this."

"Eh, it brings back memories." Keith grinned. "Remember how you and Brian used to fight?"

"We weren't trained to kill, Dad." Mandy snapped as Naruto challenged Samantha to a race back to the truck. It was a tie.

"…"

"Ninjas aren't ALL like the Ninja Turtles. Though I've heard that the original comics were a lot darker. More blood."

"…"

"Whatever, Dad. Can we just go home now?"

* * *

Thirty Minutes Later:  
"YAAAAAAAAAY!" Mandy was ecstatic as she grabbed her backpack and purse and jumped out of the truck, nearly shutting Naruto inside (Note: the truck is one of those four-doors where you have to open the front doors first) in the process. She ran up, opened the door; and could be heard yelling something about a baby. This was clarified when Naruto finally saw her baby.  
It was a white cat with a black splotch on one eye, a black chin, another black splotch on it's side, and a black tail with a white tip. Golden eyes blinked lazily at him from it's perch in Mandy's arms. 

"This is Seppy!" she announced.

"…It's a cat." Naruto blinked stupidly, noticing that the cat didn't seem to care which way it was held, as it was now laying on its back and staring at him upside down.

"Well, yeah, what else would my baby be?" Mandy asked as she handed him to Hinata.

"…But you said-"

"Dude, I was there when he was born. So was my mom and my brother. We're all like his family." Mandy explained as the cat pawed Hinata's face, causing the girl to laugh softly.

"He's really friendly, so you don't have to worry."

"He's so sweet."

"Oh yes, he can be a little handful when he wants to be." Mandy grinned. "Wait until he wants attention."

"You're home!" Donna O'Riley yelled, then stopped as she saw the kids staring at her. "You must be the exchange students from Japan! I'm Donna, nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Samantha smiled, shaking the older woman's hand. "Nice place."

"It smells like cat pee." Mandy complained.

"…Is she always like this?"

"It takes some getting used to." When she saw the confused look on the girl's face, Donna clarified. "The smell, I mean. Brian has to take out the litterbox."

"In THIS weather?"

"Someone has to do it." Mandy wrinkled her nose and gagged. "It's always weird coming home to a smell,"

"Smelly cat, smelly cat, what are they feeding you?" Samantha sang. Mandy blinked.

"…I'm surprised we never thought of that." She remarked. "Where is Brian, anyway?"

"Oh, he's out practicing with his band." Donna answered. "Did you guys eat yet?"

There was an awkward silence, before Mandy spoke up.  
"…Kinda."

After the impromptu dinner, Mandy took the guests on a tour of the house.  
"IT STINKS!" Naruto yelled. "IT REALLY REALLY STINKS!"

"You'll get used to it." Mandy sighed. "Now stop yelling."

"This room is kinda…messy." Samantha remarked at the bedroom with clothes, blankets, boxes, and all sorts of stuff all over the floor.

"That's my room. And that's what happens when you leave home, it becomes a dumping ground for the rest of the house."

"Yeah. Lizzie always gets upset whenever she comes home and she can't even see her floor."

"I don't blame her." Mandy grumbled. "And that's Brian's room-Don't go in there." She warned Naruto, who had his hand on the door knob.

"Why not?"

"It's worse than mine, and it smells funny."

"……"

"What? It's true! At least I clean my room from time to time!"

"…."

"Whatever, let's go watch a movie or something."

Naruto got to pick the movie that night. When Mandy showed them all the movies she had, he picked out _The Mothman Prophecies. _They had to wonder why he had to be forced into the truck on the way back to Midway later. Then again, Mandy couldn't blame him once she figured it out. Anyone would be scared to go over a suspension bridge after seeing that movie.

Then there was the sleeping arrangements. Mandy had brought the foam mattress cover and the sheet that held it in place home with her. She put this on the bottom mattress of her bed, while the top (and more comfortable) mattress was dragged out into the living room. Hinata got the mattress, Naruto got the couch, and Samantha just grabbed a blanket and headed into the basement.

"You're sleeping down there?"

"Yeah. It's quiet. And I won't pick up any vibes down there."

"Is he getting to you?" Mandy gestured towards Naruto with her head (think Jack Sparrow).

"Kinda. It's more like picking up a fuzzy radio signal."

"Sensing ghosts and stuff must be hard."

"You don't know the half of it." Samantha said dryly. Mandy decided to refrain from telling her about the "bloody handprint" mark on one of the ceiling beams downstairs. As they said their goodnights, Mandy stumbled into the bathroom, where she fumbled with her contacts before finally going to bed. Strangely, despite the audible chatter from the living room, she fell asleep almost instantly.

* * *

When Mandy opened her eyes, she realized she was in a dark room, where-  
"Holy shit, that thing's huge!" she exclaimed as she regarded the giant cage in front of her. "I'm suddenly reminded of Jurassic Park. Or King Kong. Or Godzilla." Her eyes fell on the giant, tattered sign directly in the middle. 'I may not know how to read Kanji, but that definitely looks like a 'KEEP OUT' sign.' "Damn, it's hot in here." 

**WHO ARE YOU? **A monstrous voice rang out, shaking the ground. What looked like a piece of plaster narrowly missed hitting Mandy's head. **WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? **

"I'm obviously trespassing, since I'm being yelled at." Mandy looked up…into an enormous pair of burning eyes. "Holy shit. So YOU'RE Kyuubi!"

**YES…I AM THE KYUUBI NO YOUKO. **

"It's an honor to meetcha, sir!" Mandy bowed politely. "Err…how did I get here, anyway?" she asked, looking around. "Oh shit! I just remembered that the ninjas can't use jutsus here!"

**THIS WORLD IS NOT EXACTLY…SAFE FOR ME. **

"…Eh?"

**I AM WEAKER HERE THAN BACK IN MY HOMEWORLD. **

"…Makai?"

…**NO. **The monster fox rolled its eyes. **HONESTLY, THIS IS WHY I DESPISE HUMANS. **

"But you don't mind Naruto-nii." Mandy chimed in, grinning.

**YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, DO YOU, HUMAN? **

"Hmmm…I know!" Mandy clapped her hands together cheerfully as she spoke her thoughts. "I'm dreaming, obviously!"

**AND HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT? **

"I was in bed, and I woke up here. Therefore, this is a dream."

**I SEE… '_HOW SIMPLE THIS HUMAN IS_.' **

"So, Kyuubi-dono, how have you been?"

**WHAT? **

"How has life been for you?"

**JUST GREAT, **the Kyuubi snarled. **NO, IT'S NOT ALL FINE. YOU KNOW THE NATURE OF BOUNDARIES, DO YOU NOT? **

"Liminality." Mandy stated, reciting what she remembered of the subject. "Light and Dark. Death and Life. Good and Evil. Nobodies and Somebody's. The blurring of boundaries."

**SO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT**. The Kyuubi stated. Mandy nodded.

"I tend to overanalyze things. I like learning what makes people tick, what drives them to do what they do. Makes watching Law and Order veeerrrrrrrry interesting."

**I AM NOT GOING TO TONE DOWN THE SITUATION, THEN. **Kyuubi took a deep breath. **I DO NOT BELONG HERE. **

"Well, yeah." Mandy remarked. "One, you're a fictional character, and two, kitsunes may not exist in this world anymore."

**EXACTLY. MY VERY EXISTANCE HERE IS…WRONG. I CANNOT SURVIVE HERE AT THIS LEVEL. **

"WHAT?!" the human's reaction was, well, very, very loud. And understandable. The greatest of all the tailed beasts, admitting a major weakness to a mere human? This was unexpected. Seeing this, Kyuubi continued.

**YOU YOURSELF NOTED THAT CHAKRA DOES NOT EXIST HERE AS IT DOES IN MY HOMEWORLD. A SIMPLE JUTSU HERE CAN BRING A SHINOBI TO DEATH'S DOOR. **

"You're right." Mandy was still visibly shaken by this fact, as she remembered Naruto's words. "_Hinata used the Byakugen earlier, but it really wore her out_."  
"…How bad…was it?" she asked.

**OH? WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME THIS? **

"Kyuubi-dono, you see what Naruto-nii sees, right? You've helped him out before. How bad was the chakra depletion?"

**IT WAS A MERE FAINTING SPELL, CONSIDERING THE BYAKUGEN WAS ONLY ACTIVE FOR A MEASLY THREE SECONDS. **

"THREE SECONDS?!!" Mandy screeched, eyes bugging. "HOW LONG WAS SHE OUT?"

**TWO AND A HALF HOURS**. Kyuubi leered. **DIDN'T YOU NOTICE HOW WEAK SHE WAS YESTERDAY? HOW PALE SHE WAS? **

"Why didn't anyone SAY anything?!"

**THE EMERGENCY MEETING WAS HELD SOME TIME BEFORE YOU AND YOUR FRIEND ARRIVED. **

"Ah."

**YOU CERTAINLY ARE LAZY. ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT ONE OF THE NARA CLAN? **

"…Laziness just…runs in families, I guess."

…**NOW WHERE WERE WE IN OUR DISCUSSION? AH YES, THE CHAKRA MATTER. AS I WAS SAYING, THE SEAL ON ME IS WEAKENING. **

"And that would be a bad thing?"

**YES. IT IS WEAKENING IN A WAY THAT ACTUALLY MANAGES TO SAP MY STRENGTH. MY LIFE IS AT RISK HERE. **

"Okay, that is bad. The canon is at risk."

**THAT TOO. **

"So why come to me? Why not go to any of the others?"

**BECAUSE I NEEDED TO BE SURE. **

"Look before you leap, eh?"

**SO, SINCE I AM GOING TO HIBERNATE FOR A WHILE, I AM ASKING YOU TO TAKE CARE OF MY HOST WHILE I AM OUT. **

"Dude, I assigned myself as his unofficial big sister. As long as I'm around him, I won't let anything happen to him."

**YOU SOUND JUST LIKE HIM. **

"Yeah, the kid grows on ya. Like a fungus, only nicer to be around."

…**YOU ARE A STRANGE ONE, HUMAN. **

"I get that all the time." Mandy grinned. "Normalcy gets boring."

**AND I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF YOU DIDN'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS. **

"The fact that you're asking a girl for help?"

…**YES, THAT. **

"No problem, man! You can tell Naruto yourself someday, preferably when I'm not around." Mandy gave the caged monster a thumbs up. "Besides, his reaction will be fun to watch."

**BY THE WAY, YOU MAY WANT TO COME OUT AND COLLECT YOUR CAT. **

"Eh?" Now Mandy was sitting up on her mattress, blinking and wondering what the hell THAT was. Then she heard Naruto.  
"STUPID CAT! GET OFF ME!"

It turned out that Seppy was trying to play with Naruto. Or annoy him. Either way, the cat had apparently been crawling all over Naruto, chewing on his hair, pawing his face, sticking his paw in his mouth, talking and nibbling on the kid's arm. Hinata was giggling from her mattress, Samantha had came up from the basement wielding on of the family's Mag-Lite flashlights (you know, the really heavy ones), it appeared that she had also been rudely awakened, and there would be hell to pay for whoever was responsible. Actually, the whole family had been woken up by the racket, and everyone was rather cranky.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?" Keith roared. Seppy made that "rewor" sound at him, and he blinked.

"THE STUPID CAT WON'T LET ME SLEEP!" Naruto yelled, pointing at the cat now rolling around on his legs. Seppy blinked lazily at him, before rubbing his head against Naruto's hand.

"Aw, he likes you." Mandy grinned, resting her arm on the entertainment center. Samantha blinked wearily. "So you made all this fuss over a cat?" she asked. "Yeesh, kid, it's two in the morning, some of us are trying to sleep."

"Yeah, man, mom has to work today." Mandy complained. "So, please, shut the hell up."  
Seppy then decided to jump onto the mattress where Hinata was sitting, and crawled under the covers with her. He stayed there for the rest of the night.

"Okay, guys, we're going OUT!" Mandy exclaimed, pointing dramatically at the ceiling.

"Please stop acting like Gai." Naruto groaned.

"Or that creepy Lee kid." Samantha added.

"Actually, Lee looks and acts almost exactly like Gai." Mandy explained. Samantha winced.

"…Eww."

"ANYWAY," Mandy continued, "We are heading up to my Grandma's to help her make Christmas cookies. There's four of us, and that'll help us get everything done faster."

"How many cookies are there?"

"No idea. Usually around a couple hundred, I think."

"REALLY?!"

"Yes, Naruto. Trust me, it's easy. Hell, if Hinata-chan can do it, YOU can do it."

"Y-y-you really t-th-think so?"

"I know so! I've been doing it for years!" Mandy patted her unofficial little brother on the back encouragingly. "Trust me, it may be a pain to make the damn things, but it's worth it in the end." A dreamy grin worked its way across her face as she added, "Warm chocolate chip cookies…" in a very Homer-Simpson-like voice.

"Yeesh, Mandy, you really are an airhead." Samantha laughed, before calmly asking,

"How far is your grandma's from here?"

"About fifteen minutes." Mandy shrugged nonchalantly, putting her coat on. "How long did it take you guys when you got here?"

"Well, I was fighting with Sasuke-teme, and Hinata-chan was watching, and then Jiraiya showed up, and so did Kakashi-sensei, Sakura-chan, Shikamaru, Neji, and that bastard Orochimaru showed up, and there was a BIG flash of light, and a loud 'Crack' and the next thing we knew, we fell on your friend's desk and smashed her computer."

"No wonder she was pissed." Mandy mumbled. "So, it just takes a few seconds when you're Puddle-Jumping."

"Puddle-Jumping?" Samantha asked, raising an eyebrow. "Where did you come up with that?"

"I'm an avid reader." Mandy grinned. "Tell ya what, when we get back tonight, I'll lend ya my copy of _The Complete Chronicles of Narnia_. It'll help."

"What's Narnia?" Naruto asked. Hinata nodded.

"Yes, wh-what is Narnia?"

"Another world." Mandy smiled. "Another world where all sorts of creatures live, where magic is in the air, and-"

'Enough with the theatrics, let's go already!" Samantha complained.

"Alright already! Yeesh!"

And so the Yukarimobile was launched.

"So, what's your grandma like?" Samantha asked curiously. Mandy blinked.

"That's a weird question, but I'll do my best to answer it." She scratched her head, and the car slipped on some ice.

"Can you PLEASE be more careful?!" Naruto shrieked. Besides wearing the seatbelts, he was holding onto the back of the seat like it was a shield. Beside him, Hinata was doing the same, white eyes wide with terror.

"Don't yell like that!" Mandy snapped as the car behind them began to honk angrily at them. "It's distracting." She turned back to Samantha. "Grandma O'Riley is really nice. She's really religious, and it's fun to watch her fight with Grandpa."

"They fight?"

"Oh yes. Grandpa complains about the government, he takes the dishes out of the dishwasher and washes them in the sink, they argue about money…"

"That's a relief." Samantha sighed.

"Why?"

"Oh, for some reason, I was thinking they actually attack each other."

"Nah, all Grandpa does is sit in his chair, complain about everything, and just chill out

with his dog and some beers."

"He has a dog?" Naruto visibly brightened up before looking out the windshield. "Uh, why are we stopping?"

"It's a red light, Naruto. Red means stop, and green means go."

"Aren't red and green Christmas colors?"

"Yes."

"So these aren't Christmas lights?"

"No! Where the hell did you get that idea from?"

"Samantha-san told me."

"Oh really?" Mandy asked venomously, rolling her eyes to look at the girl sitting next to her. Samantha sighed.

"…Aw, come on, you're not THAT mad at me, are you?"

"Look, Samantha, the kid knows next to NOTHING about this place. The last thing I need is to explain to that creepy teacher of his why Naruto ended up as roadkill."

"Hey, it's not my fault the kid's so gullible."

"You were reading my James Thurber books, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Which means you were in my room last night." Mandy glared.

"No, I was in the computer room last night." Samantha responded, grinning. "There may be cobwebs and dead bugs in there, but you got one hell of a book collection."

"Yep." Mandy nodded as she turned into her grandmother's driveway. "Well, we're here."

* * *

Mandy: Well, that's it for tonight. All chatter regarding family members is somewhat true, though names have been changed. And yes, there is a freaky handprint in my cellar. 

Kitty: You really have a freaky handprint in your cellar? Kewl. Anyways, please review, so we know what to work on, where to improve, or to see if anyone is actually reading this story. Is anyone for that matter? Hello out there?


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Again, we do not own the characters. For further disclaimers, please refer to previous chapters.

**NOTES ON THE STORY: READ BEFORE YOU CONTINUE**

1.) Just as in the actual Naruto universe(or universes, what with the manga and the anime), the secret about the Kyuubi has to be kept.  
2.) "Dono" (also written as "Tono") is a term that roughly means "Lord". It's higher than the "-Sama" honorific. Mandy refers to the Kyuubi no Youko as "Kyuubi-dono" to show that she respects him. She sees him as an embodied force of nature, much like the animal gods from Princess Mononoke. After all, he is no mere talking animal.  
3A.) I intended the conversation between Mandy and Kyuubi to be somewhat humorous. Mandy knows who she's talking to, she has some idea of what he can do, but she just talks to him like she would anyone else.  
3B.) As it is hinted at, the shinobi chakra system doesn't work here the way it does back in their homeworld. Likewise, the advanced healing abilities that Naruto has (compliments of Kyuubi no Youko) wouldn't exactly work. And as we all know, Naruto tends to get into trouble very easily, often resulting in physical injury. Hence, the Kyuubi no Youko asking Mandy, Naruto's self proclaimed "Unofficial Big Sister" to make sure he doesn't do anything incredibly stupid. Part of the humor here is the awkwardness of Kyuubi no Youko, the strongest demon in his world, asking a mere human (and a girl, at that) to help him out.  
3C.) On a related note: While chakra doesn't work here, the shinobi still have very high stamina and agility. Simply put, they get around a lot faster then "average" people. Also, they could pass off their ninja skills as "parkour" or "free running". Wiki these, and/or look up video clips on Youtube.  
4.) The thing about the traffic lights is from a James Thurber essay ("Recollections of the Gas Buggy"). Basically, when James Thurber was a young boy, cars first started appearing (along with traffic lights). His aunt came into town and took him Christmas shopping in the family car. As Thurber says, "She enjoyed the hallucination, among others, that she was able to drive a car." However, she had no idea what traffic lights were, and it being the holiday season (with the seasonal colors of red and green), she assumed that they were Christmas decorations. Thurber never really recovered from that little incident. The essay is included in the anthology The Thurber Carnival, which is pretty easy to find, just look in the humor section of your bookstore, or check at your library. I highly recommend this book.  
5.) How are the characters understanding each other? To explain, I'll explain how the Russian dub of Princess Mononoke worked. They used the English dub as a basis, and the way they dubbed over it, if you turn it up loud enough, you can hear the English voices under the Russian ones. So, they are speaking English, with an undercurrent of Japanese. Sometimes it's reversed, sometimes they just speak Japanese.  
6.) And just to make it clear: all enemy characters have a temporary truce going on; once they return to their homes, everything is back to normal. This is why Orochimaru was being courteous in Chapter 5. They're guests in a strange land, and they can't just go around killing their hosts or other people. Therefore, Oro is going to be somewhat polite. It's the "right" thing to do.  
Now that we're finished here, on with the story.

* * *

Chapter Seven: It's Hard Work 

"Nice place." Samantha commented as the group ascended the porch steps. Mandy sighed as Hinata stumbled on the salt scattered across the porch. 'Dammit Grandpa, there isn't much snow up here in the first place!' she thought angrily. Dennis Moon was, as Mandy had tried to convey to their guests, a bit of a goof, a modern-day Archie Bunker (minus the racism, but the complaints about the world in general more than made up for that). Him and his dog were inseparable, which made hugging him goodbye a bit of a hassle. Grandma Lois was the "voice of reason" to an extent. No nonsense, sensible, somewhat old fashioned.

Mandy was going to do her best to not let Naruto on her bad side. Granted, it was hard to get on Grandma Lois' bad side, but it was possible. Naruto did seem to be a trouble magnet. Then again, so was Pacifica, but that was another series altogether. Wait a minute… both Naruto and Pacifica had bright blonde hair and blue eyes, both were trouble magnets, both were loudmouths... was there some sort of connection? Let's hope not. Scrapped Princess or Kyuubi Vessel, they were two totally different people. Pacifica was a GIRL, for crying out loud! 'Man, I'm getting sidetracked,' Mandy thought wearily as she opened the door for Naruto…..and said boy was assaulted by a small poodle.

"WHAT THE-GET IT OFF ME!" he shouted, whirling around as the dog attached itself to his arm. Mandy blinked. Prissy usually didn't get this angry, unless, of course, you were trying to hug Grandpa Dennis goodbye, during which she would go all attack dog on you.

"How cute." Samantha said from behind Mandy. "Is that a toy poodle?"

"Nope, it's a real one." 'Ah, that joke never gets old.'

"Prissy!" Grandma Lois snapped from somewhere in the sea of cookies and baking supplies that was the kitchen. "Leave the boy alone!"

"Hi, Grandma."

"How was the ride?"

"I never want to go near that car again." Naruto muttered sullenly, staring at the floor, and the rapidly growing puddle of melting snow surrounding his feet.

"Wuss."

"Samantha, be nice."

"Um," Lois turned to Naruto, and then turned to Mandy. "What's his name again?"

"Naruto."

"Okay. Naruto, please take your shoes off." Naruto complied, and Mandy went over to a drawer and pulled out some towels, bringing them over and dumping them on the wet floor.

"So what're we doing first?" Mandy asked her grandmother, who was staring at Hinata's eyes with curiosity.

"We're making the sugar cookies."

"Oh joy." Mandy rolled her eyes. She hated sugar cookies. She hated them with a passion, ever since she was little. She had thrown up after eating some, and the experience had put her off them for life. However, she did like icing them.

"I already got started." Lois said on seeing Mandy's expression.

"And what are we supposed to do?" Naruto snapped. "This is just like those damn D-rank-" he was cut off by Samantha putting a hand over his mouth.

"It's the ADD." She explained to Lois. "His family never got him medicated."

"You mean dumbed up." Mandy mumbled. "Kids grow out of this stuff, the doctors and drug companies are just too damn concerned with the money they make from the drugs."

"How many times have I told you not to swear?" Lois snapped. "But you're right, Brian did grow out of it."

"Can we get started on the cookies now?" Samantha whined.

Rolling the dough, flattening it, using cookie cutters, loading baking trays, putting them into the two ovens, taking them out of the ovens….it was backbreaking work. Mandy's back certainly felt like it was about to snap. Hinata and Naruto were using their (somewhat reduced) ninja speed and cutting the cookie dough. Samantha was loading and unloading the cooking trays, and Lois was currently arguing with Dennis about him "getting off his butt and going to the store instead of watching that damn football game." Yep. It was just like every other holiday season in the O'Riley family, except with ninjas.

"Okay, we're going to start icing them now." Lois announced, putting the powdered sugar, the milk and the butter in the mixer. Mandy decided to take this opportunity to pull out her cell phone and call Kitty.

"'Ello?"

"Hey, Kitty. You home yet?"

"Yup. Ban is doing fine. But Lee…"

"Oh god, what is it?" Mandy groaned. Kitty sighed.

"…He's outside giving the pygmy goats lectures on being youthful." There was a pause after these words. Then…

"BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA! Are you SERIOUS? That's hilarious!" Mandy couldn't hold back her laughter as her family and the guests stared. "Anything else?"

"Well, he's now-GAH! LEE! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?"

"What the hell's going on over there?" Mandy asked. Distant yelling could be heard in the background.

"Sorry, gotta go!" CLICK.

"What was that about?" Samantha asked, poking an icing-splattered face out from the kitchen door. Mandy sighed.

"Lee's causing a bit of a ruckus up at Kitty's."

"Lee? That weirdo in the spandex?"

"One and the same."

"Oh brother."

"Yep." Mandy sighed as she walked into the kitchen before stopping in her tracks. "Jesus Christ!"

"MANDY!" Lois scolded, then stopped when she saw what made her granddaughter stop. Hinata and Naruto were already halfway done icing the cookies, while Samantha had her own small pile in front of her.

"Wow….you kids sure are fast." Lois murmured. Naruto grinned at her, and Hinata blushed. Samantha stared at the cookies before voicing something that the others had just realized.

"Yeah, but weren't they supposed to add the food coloring?" Mandy let out a strangled scream at this, but cheered up when they started on the other half. And that's how half of the O'Riley cookies that year were white as snow (stars, candy canes, and Christmas trees), while the others were these bizarre colors (blood red, a poisonous looking green, sky blue, a sickly looking yellow). Hinata and Mandy's icing jobs were considerably neater than Naruto's, while Samantha's was somewhere inbetween.

"Can we eat 'em yet?" Naruto asked. Mandy shrugged. If this guy could eat ten bowls of ramen in one sitting (and almost all the French fries for four people) who knew how many cookies he could eat?

"Just ask Grandma first. These cookies are supposed to last for a long time."

"…How long, exactly?" Samantha asked wearily.

"Well, we still have to make those chocolate cookies with powdered sugar, those cookies with the Hershey's Kiss in them, the chocolate chip ones, the oatmeal ones-"

"That many?" The guests' eyes looked like they were going to bug out of their heads.

"How long do they last?"

"I dunno. Quite a while, really, depending on if you actually eat them."

That night, everybody went to Mandy's with sore backs, stiff legs, and various other symptoms of hard work. Once again, Mandy called Kitty, this time, to see what all the fuss had been about on the other end. Thankfully, Kitty answered.

"'Ello?"

"Hey Kitty. What happened earlier?" Mandy asked, as Naruto loudly found out that there was another cat in the house. (Samantha calmly told him that it had slept on the couch with her the night before as she had him in a headlock.)

"Oh, Lee wanted to take a youthful swim in our pond." Kitty sighed. Mandy blinked.

"The pond. Lee wanted to swim in that pond with all the algae and muck? The one where you don't even know how deep it is? THAT pond?"

"Yep."

"What the hell is WRONG with that kid?" Mandy asked wearily. Kitty sighed.

"I dunno, but Ban had to knock him out."

"What is in that pond anyway?" Mandy was curious.

"We don't know. There could be anything in there."

"Like a body."

"Or a monster."

"Or a Hellmouth." Mandy added.

"Never thought of that." Kitty remarked thoughtfully. Meanwhile, the other cat, Charcoal, was letting Hinata pet it. Mandy decided that Hinata was obviously a cat person, unlike that feral boy in her team with his dog. Now Mandy wished she knew more about the "Narutoverse". There was so much she would need to know.

"Kitty," Mandy said quietly. "I need you to help me learn more about Naruto's world."

"You don't watch the show?" Kitty asked.

"No, I don't. I've only seen one episode and the first movie."

"That's…not very much." Kitty agreed. "Have you read the manga?"

"I think I've read it up to volume 5 or 6."

"You're really out of the loop." Kitty sighed.

"So it seems."

This was true, to an extent. You see, Mandy wasn't really the type to go all nuts over the popular shows. The massive rabid fanbases these shows tended to spawn scared her. So, she had her own fandoms, which were namely Studio Ghibli movies, the Boogiepop, and the .hack franchises, and so on, she could be called an 'animation junkie'. Then there was her music obsession, her love of RPGs, reading, and (mostly) useless information that was useless most of the time. However, if you wanted information on folklore, natural disasters, the paranormal and forensics, Mandy was the person to ask. Being a bookworm had its uses.

"Where are they at in the manga now?" Kitty asked.

"Here, or in Japan?"

"Both."

"No idea."

"Oh brother. Mandy, you really need to get into the loop. Seriously."

"After all this is said and done, I think I will." Mandy sighed, before glancing into the living room. "OOH!"

"What? What is it?"

"Die Hard is on! I love that movie!"

"I've never seen that movie."

"You're missing out, man! Christmas with lots of explosions and bullets! Yippee Kai Ay, Motherfuckers!" Mandy was punching the air as she said (or rather, shouted it, much to the amusement/horror of the guests.

"…Sounds…interesting." Kitty deadpanned, as did the guests in Mandy's living room.

"Yeah. Hey, you know that Vincent guy from Final Fantasy VII?"

"We've only watched Advent Children about two or three times in the anime club, so yeah, I know."

"Can't you just see him saying that?"

"….You have a really twisted mind. You know that, right?"

"It's my pride and joy, Kitty." Mandy had a big grin on her face as she said this. "How else would I come up with such weird stuff?"

After the movie, during which Mandy was telling Naruto and Hinata how they could learn some pretty useful stuff from John McLane, everyone went to bed. Or tried to, anyway. You see, Samantha had gotten into Mandy's DVD collection and found The War of the Worlds and Signs, and in the end, Naruto was worried that 'things from another world would get him and Hinata-chan'. So when everyone woke up the next day, (December 17th), they found Naruto on guard, kunai at the ready, crouched by the back door.

"There was someone outside." He explained. Samantha believed him. Hell, if someone with a bunch of knives tells you that there's someone on your hosts' property that doesn't belong, you're kinda inclined to believe them. Donna O'Riley sighed as she went to the sink to fill up a small pot of water-and dropped said pot in the sink and screamed. Mandy charged into her brother's room ("GET OUTTA MY ROOM! GEEZ!") and grabbed his baseball bat. She ran into the kitchen and-

"What the hell?" You see, the kitchen window was quite a ways off the ground, and currently, a grinning Kakashi could be seen looking in from his perch on the woodpile under the window. Samantha was laughing, Donna was having a panic attack, and Keith O'Riley was trying to calm her down.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto snapped. Mandy glared at the man, who was now reading one of those damn porno novels again. She tightened her grip on the bat, and her knuckles were turning white.

"I'M GONNA KILL THAT BASTARD!"

"MANDY!"

"GET OUTTA HERE, YOU PERVERTED, LAZY-EYED PSYCHO!"

"Good morning to you too." Kakashi smiled as he dodged her furious attack.

"How the HELL did you get here?!"

"I walked."

"For two DAYS?"

"Survival training. We are shinobi, after all."

"Gah! My brain hurts!"

After introductions were made ("This creepy bastard is Naruto's teacher, Hatake Kakashi. Feel free to laugh."), and Kakashi was invited inside for some breakfast (Mandy made his oatmeal herself. Kakashi later said that the stuff tasted like shit and was all gummy.)

"So, when did Brian get back?" Mandy asked. Naruto looked up from his bowl of oatmeal.

"Sometime early this morning."

"Haah, his band musta been practicing all night then." Mandy sighed as she picked up her empty bowl. "You done with your oatmeal?"

"Yeah. How come you made Kakashi-sensei a different kind of oatmeal?"

"I just made it the way my mom does. Boil water, add the oats, and stir."

"He can barely move his spoon."

"It's the first time I've made it that way, there's bound to be something wrong with it." Mandy retorted as Kakashi turned the bowl upside down…and the oatmeal didn't even move. The spoon remained embedded in the gummy mess. He gave her a meaningful look.

"Alright, alright, I'll make something else."

* * *

And thats the seventh chapter. Hope you all(who are actually reviewing it) enjoyed it. Nah. I hope everyone enjoys it. Reviewers and nonreviewers. Though if you feel like reviewing, please do. Thanks for reading again. 


	8. Chapter 8

Side-Author notes: As you may have noticed, this chapter is shorter than the others. Just go with it. Its still a good chapter, and we hope you al enjoy it.

Disclaimer: Again, we do not own it. Only Mandy and Kitty, and asociated family members. For a more clearer disclaimer, please refer to the previous 7 chapters and enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Eight: Before You Die, You See the Spongmonkeys 

After the horrific incident with the oatmeal, Mandy decided to go online and look up some random animations online. Hmm, the Brackenwood series sounded interesting. So she loaded them all up in one window ("Firefox, what would we do without you?") and just as she settled down to watch them…

"What're you doing?" an all-too familiar voice asked from behind her. She slowly turned around.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM, YOU PERVERT?!" she shrieked, chucking her pillow at Kakashi. He caught it in mid-air and grinned. At least, his eye was curved up in a smile.

"Your mom says you need to get ready to go to your Grandma's."

"…Damn, I almost forgot about that."

* * *

In the car: 

It was a beautiful day. The trees were frosted with a layer of ice and snow, the ground had a blanket of snow on it as well. Yes, it was a beautiful day.

"Are you supposed to swerve like that?" Kakashi asked. Mandy's eye twitched. Naruto was riding shotgun today, while Samantha, Hinata, and Kakashi were in the back. "You almost hit that car."

"I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!" Mandy roared. "Jesus, you're worse than my mom!"

"Your mother must have a death wish if she rides with you." Samantha commented.

"She overreacts." Mandy shrugged. Samantha blinked.

"Well, from what we've seen of your driving, I don't blame her."

"Perfectly understandable." Kakashi nodded.

"Look, will you shut up already? And besides, Aimee is way worse than me!"

"Friend of yours?" Samantha asked. Mandy nodded.

"Yep. Known her since kindergarten."

"You've really managed to keep a friend for that long?" Kakashi asked. Big mistake. Mandy turned into her grandmother's driveway and slammed on the brakes. If anyone in that car hadn't been wearing their seatbelts, they would've been tossed through the windshield. Mandy glared at the masked shinobi.

"My friends don't end up dead." She growled. "At least we know how to value friendship in this world. Your abilities are only available to you because **_he_** gave them to you. Without them, you'd be **_nothing_**. Hell, you'd probably be _dead_ without them." Kakashi glared back at her, and everyone else in the car hurriedly rushed out, as the car was currently full of an uncomfortable, tense atmosphere. "I don't know why you're here," Mandy continued. "Or if you really care about Naruto-nii or your team at all. But I will tell you one thing. You suck as a teacher."

No one was sure what the problem was, but Mandy and Kakashi were creating a gloomy, angry atmosphere at Lois' house. Naruto swore that they were giving off a really dark aura, but Samantha said something about "Instant Karma. You know, like instant mashed potatoes. Or instant gangrene."

"…Instant gangrene?" Naruto asked. He had some knowledge of gangrene, having been in the hospital from time to time, but he had never heard of, well, "instant gangrene". "Is that anything like instant ramen?"

"Way worse." Samantha lectured, holding up the butter knife she was currently using to trim the sugar cookie dough with. "It sets in, well, instantly, and it can kill ya in a heartbeat."

Mandy wondered why Naruto looked so nervous when she returned to the kitchen. Kakashi was sitting on the recliner, reading one of his porn books while watching the football games on TV. Dennis was in his chair, drinking a beer and petting Prissy the Killer Poodle, who wouldn't stop growling at Kakashi. 'She must smell the blood on him,' Mandy decided as she set up her laptop and got online. She had reached when an evil grin made its way across her face. She had an idea. This was way better than traffic lights that looked like Christmas decorations. This was way better than that video she had seen on SNL earlier that year ('Laser Cats'. Hee hee hee…'). "Oh, Naruto!" she called, the grin evident in her voice. He appeared, not looking too happy.

"What?"

"Watch this." Mandy clicked on the link, and a blank grey page with some strange banners appeared. Then, at full blast-

**_"WE LIKE THA MOOOON-!"_**

"WH-WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE?!" Naruto shrieked, pointing at the horrific-looking creatures wearing hats that suddenly appeared, singing something horrifically off-key. Samantha stuck her head through the kitchen door.

"What the hell is going on out there? It sounds like Yoko Ono or something." She failed to mention that Hinata had struck a Hyuuga fighting pose out in the kitchen, scaring the bejeezus out of Lois, who had then dropped a tray full of cutlery. Prissy started barking, and Kakashi and Dennis just glared. Well, this was just nice.

"Just scaring Naruto-nii." Mandy drawled, before returning the glare that was being aimed at her by Kakashi. "What? It's not like you care about his well-being. He's just expendable to you."

"That's enough!" Lois shouted from the doorway, throwing her hands into the air.  
"Mandy, if you and your boyfriend can't get along-

"BOYFRIEND?!" Mandy screamed, her face turning a very interesting mixture of rage and fury.

Kakashi made a sound that sounded suspiciously like he was choking, and dropped his Icha-Icha. It opened to a VERY interesting illustration, and when Lois saw it, she started screaming at the mortified shinobi, and Mandy took this opportunity to pack up and run, grabbing Hinata, Naruto, and Samantha on the way.

"Where are we going?" Samantha asked from the back seat. Mandy burned rubber as she pulled out of the driveway and sped down the road.

"Kitty's house."

"Why are we going there, exactly?"

"Hell hath no fury like a very pissed off Catholic grandma." Mandy smirked as the familiar notes of "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg: Boogiepop Version Classical Mix" roared throughout the interior of the car.

"Hell hath no fury indeed…" Samantha murmured as she sat back. Mandy's face looked an awful lot like Jack Nicholson's portrayal of Jack Torrence in The Shining, where he's just sitting on the bad, staring into space with a maniacal grin on his face. "Redrum," she mumbled in a gravely voice, making sure to wiggle her index finger in Naruto's face as she did this. Naruto winced.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

"REDRUM!!"

"GAH! MANDY! MAKE HER STOP!"

"SHADDUP, NARUTO-NII!"

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Kitty reviewed the information Mandy had given her as they sat on her bed, Mandy hugging her giant plush Stitch. "You left because your grandma thought Kakashi was your boyfriend?" 

"I've never been so humiliated in my entire life." Mandy mumbled. "And to top it all off, he was so freaked out, he dropped his Icha Icha. Grandma saw that, and started freaking out, yelling and screaming." Kitty started laughing when she heard this.

"You… you left him to the mercies of an angry grandmother?" she managed to get out between gasps for air. "I can't believe you'd do that!"

"He deserved it." Mandy nodded. "I hope Grandma puts that pervert through hell."

Indeed Kakashi was very busy. You see, someone had to clean up the mess that had resulted from the "Spongmonkey Incident". And all the while, he was cursing Mandy's name as he scrubbed the floor.

* * *

AUTHOR/MANDY'S NOTES: The "Instant Gangrene" thing is from the sequel to the book "How to Eat Fried Worms". The name of the sequel escapes my mind at the moment, as does the name of the author. "Instant Karma" is a John Lennon song (The line "we all shine one" inspired the title for the Stephen King book _The Shining_, which is highly worth the read), and is a real site. The Spongmonkeys are horrifying, hilarious little creatures that sing about how they like the moon, and were in some Quiznos commercials a while ago that managed to scare the crap out of my parents and countless other Americans. The online paper The Onion said "They are what you see before you die", and I am somewhat inclined to believe them. 

Regarding Mandy's treatment of Kakashi: Well, he may have taught Team Seven some valuable lessons, he still left a lot to be desired, like with his favoritism towards Sasuke. I know that Kakashi's the only other person that taught the brat how to use that Sharingan of his, but did the brat put it to good use? No. Plus, Sasuke gets preferential treatment from everyone back home. Hell, he even got to take the Chuunin exams despite being late. If you don't call that favoritism, I don't know what else to call it. And, let's also consider that Team Seven developed much better when they were being trained by the Sannin. Overall, Kakashi only taught them more basic stuff.

Kitty Note: And please remember to review. It makes us happy. No reviews make me unhappy. And when I'm unhappy, my cat is unhappy. You wont like it when he's unhappy.


	9. Chapter 9

OK. Well, those of you who are actually reading this, well you get 2 updates on one weekend. Feel honored. For everyone else who is simply reading this, and ignoring it then, well, your not honored.

Disclaimer: Read previous 8 chapters to find this note. We do not own the anime characters, or trademark names. Only the original characters.

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Chapter Nine: Samantha's Status Report

12/19/06, Dimension "R", 12:50 AM  
Currently listening to: Linkin Park-"Faint"

It seems that our Shinobi friends are getting on well in this world, at least as long as they don't use any of their "jutsus", or their "chakra". This proves your theory about how possibilities differ from world to world, Dad. Magic may be used where magic is possible, but it definitely wouldn't work here.

I am concerned about the Uzumaki boy and his…tenant, or, as Mandy has taken to calling him, "The Phantom Fourth Guest", or "Kyuubi-dono". I get minor headaches whenever I am in close contact with the boy for extended periods of time. Well, not a headache per se. It's like when you tune a radio and all you get is static. I know something happened two nights ago, because there was a flare of energy. It felt like someone had my head in a vice. I'll have to ask if anyone else noticed anything. [UPDATE: Mandy definitely knows something, but she refuses to say anything. She seems to be unusually calm about having one of the most powerful "bijuu" in existence in her house, almost to the point of not caring. However, this seems to be a good thing. From what I've read on Uzumaki, not many people in his world could see past the fact that "Kyuubi no Youko" was sealed within him.

Also regarding the Uzumaki boy: Mandy has adopted him as her unofficial little brother. When asked what this meant, she explained that as long as she is in the same place (read: world) as him, she is his big sister. Plus, he seems to remind her of her brother Brian when he was little, and from the pictures I've seen of him then, this is true. He seems to be somewhat okay with this, but she still manages to scare him sometimes. Like when she drives. I swear, Dad, she's worse than Lizzie! She swerves, she speeds, she goes in reverse when she should be driving forward, and she changes CDs while driving! Then again, she says she does this to scare Uzumaki and Kuchisake Kakashi.

Oh, speaking of Kuchisake, that creepy teacher showed up here yesterday morning. I know one of the reasons is definitely to check up on Uzumaki, but I'm not quite sure what the other reason is. I do think it might be to annoy Mandy. He seems like the type that likes to annoy people. [UPDATE: This has been confirmed. Apparently him and that Kyle guy planned this little "excursion" just to piss Mandy off. Sneaky bastards.

Did you know that Mandy's idea of a holiday movie is? The Die Hard movies. Yes, you heard me, she likes movies with a lot of explosions and blood and cursing. Apparently, she hasn't seen the third one yet, but she wants to see that one and the fourth one that comes out this coming summer. I'm starting to wonder how the hell she came up with me in the first place. She says that I keep evolving, and changing, and something about me having a life of my own. I both agree with her and worry about this.

I'm not even going to start on the "Spongmonkey Incident", except for the fact that Mandy isn't talking to her mom, and that Mandy really, really hates Kakashi. Mrs. O'Riley isn't about to let her live it down. I pity her.

By the way, Dad, there's an online comic I'm reading called "Aoi House". I am amused and disturbed by the similarities between the girls in the comic and the girls in the anime club here. I hear that Seikai and Venus once attempted to set the guys up with other guys in the club. I really fear for the Hyuuga bastard and Orochimaru. The latter may be a villain, but he doesn't deserve-I'd really rather not think about it. Orochimaru looks too much like Saeki Kayako from the Ju-On/The Grudge series for my comfort, and Neiji reminds me of a dead fish with those eyes of his. His eyes are a lot colder than Hinata-chan's. I've done some research on the Hyuuga family, Dad, and if you think our family is fcked up, the Hyuugas, and most of the clans in the Shinobi world take the cake. I'm just glad Lizzie isn't the type to pull an Itachi on us all. Honestly, who in their right mind names their kid "Weasel"? They're just asking for trouble. The kid kills his family, hangs out with a bunch of emos in tacky black grad robes with red clouds sewn on them, and his best friend is a "Jaws" wannabe with a Buster Sword. Mandy is pissed off that the Child Protection Agency and Social Services did nothing for Naruto and Sasuke when they were growing up. She views the Shinobi's idea of life as "a backwards place where nobody gives a shit if you live or die, where inbred freaks run the place, and where the security is so bad, you could pull off something very, very bad and no one could put two and two together until hundreds end up dead." I have no comment about the whole "inbred" thing, (Naruto's world reminds me of that popular concept of West Virginia) but the rest is a little too accurate for my tastes. Every world has had a massive security breach, and for a world full of people who's job is to be paranoid, and kill anyone who goes against the grain to miss the simple fact that they are being invaded, that is truly pathetic. Add to that the fact that they see no need to properly take care of their children, even the orphans, I can safely say that the way of the Shinobi in Naruto's world will someday die out, just as it has in Mandy's world. The shinobi here may not have had all those fancy, pointless jutsus, but they had stealth, and look where it got them. Hell, the samurai had better luck at surviving in all the worlds. They may have been stomped out, but they left more of a legacy than those stupid Shinobi ever could.

I'm signing off for the night. I really need some sleep. Naruto's been incredibly paranoid ever since we watched _Signs_. And it seems to be catching. Just last night, we were all watching _The Sixth Sense_, when, during the part where Cole and Malcolm are at that girl's funeral, when someone knocked on the front door, scaring the shit out of everyone. Hell, Mandy and Naruto scared us the most, what with all the screaming. They weren't the only ones, though. It was just Kakashi, who apparently had Mandy's grandfather drop him off. I swear, that bastard really likes terrorizing people. Now I just need to sleep, and I should be better in the morning. Wait, it is morning. Damn it.

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Note: The "Sixth Sense" incident is based on something that actually happened to my family while watching it years ago.

Yes. A look into the mind and writings of Samantha, from the mind of Mandy. Hope you all enjoyed this little snip of a chapter. Please, as always, read and review.


	10. Chapter 10

Sorry it took so long to get this up. But, here it is. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Just read the previous chapters. It says the same, or close to the same thing for each one. We do not own Naruto, the Miami Dolphins, Final Fantasy, Christmas, or anything else in here that owning would make the person extremely wealthy.

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**Chapter 10: A Few Days Later**

Christmas was here. At least, it was the day before Christmas Eve. Kakashi was gone, having hitched a ride back to Kyle's. For Mandy, that was the ultimate Christmas gift. Now all she needed was a DS and this would be a perfect Christmas. Alas, she didn't get the DS, but we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

Naruto and Hinata had finally calmed down and were getting used to a world where they didn't have to worry about getting killed in the field.(1) They did have to worry about the impromptu snowball fight Samantha had dragged them all into, and Mandy had been forced to participate by her creation. The result was Mandy and Hinata's team being beaten by an almost literal landslide, due to Naruto and Samantha's team's fort being on the hill (and the fact that Naruto was getting a little TOO carried away with the snowballs, even making giant ones to roll down the hill at them). However, when it was all over and everyone was heading inside, it was Hinata who saw their visitor.

"Look." She pointed towards the forest behind them. For a second, Mandy and Samantha were afraid that the local Sasquatch had decided to pay a visit. The last time it (if it was really a Sasquatch and not a guy wearing fake feet) had been in the area, Mandy and her brother had been very young, in elementary and preschool respectively, and the footprints were right at the bottom of the very hill they were now playing on.

Thankfully, it wasn't Bigfoot. Mandy had handled inter-dimensional guests, but she didn't think she could handle a close encounter with a cryptid. It was a fox. That was all. Just a orange-brown fox in the trees, watching them from a safe distance.

"So pretty…" Mandy whispered as it calmly turned around and trotted back into the white forest. "That's the first time I've seen one here."

"You've never seen a wild fox?"

"From a distance." Mandy explained as they resumed trudging up the hill in the now knee-deep snow. "Me and my dad were heading out to meet mom at the mall, and it was in a field by the road."

"Oh." Naruto looked towards the forest. Nothing was there. So why did he still feel that they were being watched?

**L****ater that night…**

"What the hell IS that?!" Mandy wondered as she sat up in bed. It was the middle of the night, and it definitely wasn't a silent one. The dog was barking and howling, the cats were freaking out, and Naruto was yelling. Yep. This could almost be a normal night at her house, if Naruto and his friends weren't there. She stepped onto the floor and slammed open the door.

"What's got everybody worked up?" she asked her bleary eyed mother. Donna blinked sleepily before realized her daughter had just spoken to her.

"Something's outside…I think."

"No shit! Why is everyone freaking out?" Mandy snapped. Samantha interrupted when she charged in, followed by a grinning Keith.

"Guys! Guys, listen!" Everything seemed to stop for a moment. In the distance, a faint cry could be heard from the woods.

"What the hell is that?" Donna asked.

"It sounds like someone screaming." Mandy shuddered. "I'm gonna go get the baseball bat." She ran to her brother's door and- "Dammit! He locked it!"

"Go AWAY!" Brain shouted from inside his room. Mandy was really freaking out now. Samantha put a reassuring hand on her friends' shoulder.

"Dude, there's a fox outside!" she laughed. "I thought that noise sounded familiar."

"The cats are all inside, right?" Mandy asked, panicking.

"Yes." Keith interjected before she could get very far. Mandy was visibly relieved.

"Well, I'm going back to bed." She yawned and turned towards the door. "Hey, Naruto-nii. What's wrong?"

"Did you say that there's a fox outside?" the boy asked, and for a second, fear danced across his eyes like a man covered in flames. Mandy nodded.

"Yeaaahhhh…" she stifled a huge yawn and headed back towards her room. "Oh, and Naruto-nii? The foxes you're familiar with aren't native to this region."

"It's sad when spirits are driven out of existence." Samantha nodded. "I remember reading that fox spirits were once plentiful in Japan. Then the second World War came, and many of them seemed to vanish, driven deep into the mountains and to the remaining forests."

"…World War?" Naruto asked. Mandy nodded, and seeing that Hinata was now in the hallway, beckoned for her to join in the conversation.

"Shinobi aren't the only ones to go all out in cruelty in combat."

"Cruelty?"

"…You have no idea. The things people have done in war here are nothing to laugh at." Samantha spoke up, before adding "Can we not talk about this right now? I really want to get some sleep tonight."

"Okay." Naruto nodded and turned towards the door and walked into the hallway. However, he ended up going into Mandy's room. The girl in question was now laying on her back in the bed, with that damn cat stretched out at her side. He blinked as he realized that her room-was almost as bad as his was.

"Why are you in here?" Mandy asked. Naruto stepped back, and ran out of the room and down the hall, apparently bumping into Keith along the way, judging by her dad's cursing. She shook her head as she remembered the look on his face when he realized where he was. "The kid's still a kid." She told Seppy. The cat yawned and stretched, butting his head into her armpit. Mandy really wished she could be just as carefree. _'Man, Naruto-nii has absolutely no control over his life whatsoever. Then again, none of the characters do. Their lives are dictated by their creators, and the directors of the anime adaptations, and their pain is our entertainment. I don't want to be that way with Samantha. I don't want to control every aspect of her world. She's real. She's real. What am I gonna do? I can't just write to that Kishimoto guy and that Kanzaka guy and whoever created_ Getbackers _and tell them that their characters are real. Hell, they probably already know that to an extent. Oh brother, the cat just farted.'_ She yawned, and winced. "God, cat!" she grumbled, pushing the limp cat out of her arm. "Get outta here!" Seppy ignored her. Hell, he probably hadn't even heard her. He just rolled over and stretched, yawning quietly. Mandy took this opportunity to pick up the cat and dump him on the floor. Within minutes, the cat was gone, and Mandy could hear Naruto loudly complaining in the living room (thankfully, not as loud as the last time) when Seppy began to bother him. She shook her head and tried to get to sleep.

_'I wonder how the new_ Die Hard _movie will be. Or that_ Transformers _one. God, that one'll probably be a disaster. Hmm, I hope_ Tales from Earthsea _gets released here sometime before 2009. Stupid Sci-Fi and their licensing issues.'_ It took a while, but Mandy finally got to sleep. Until Naruto barged in three hours later and dumped Seppy on her. Then she couldn't get back to sleep, so she just played Final Fantasy I&II. She had had to start a new game, since Kuchisake Kakashi had erased the 97 completed one she had. Damn ninjas, always ruining your stuff.

**Later that day:**

"That dog looks like Akamaru." This surprised Mandy, as A.) It was Hinata that had spoken, and B.) She hadn't stuttered. Mandy looked to the television screen, where Snoopy was dancing on Schroder's piano. She thought back to what Naruto manga she had read before asking the question that bubbled up out of the depths of her mind.

"Who's Akamaru?" She noted that Hinata's expression, the look that was best described by Jean Shepherd (_They looked at me as though I had lobsters crawling out of my ears_), to be exact

"Ki-Kiba-kun's dog."

"Kiba's that feral kid, right?" Mandy asked. "The one with face tattoos like Mononoke Hime?" Seeing the look on Hinata's face, she quickly added "It's a long story. You'll have to watch it later." _'Oh yes.'_ Her mind added, remembering Sasuke covered in strange markings. _'You'll all have to watch it later. It should teach you a lot, if you're willing to listen. I know you will, Hinata, but I'm not sure about the others.'_ Part of Mandy was relieved that they hadn't gotten to finish the Kill Bill movies. From what she had read up on Sasuke, she strongly suspected that he would have wanted to learn the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique just to kill his older brother and that group of Manson Family wanna-bees. _'A few weeks ago, I wouldn't have given a damn about these series. Now I'm actually worrying about their safety!'_ she mused as the family rushed about, getting ready for the Christmas Mass that night. This was definitely going to be interesting, since the characters would be coming along. Donna was chasing down Naruto to get some makeup on his face ("It has stealth value!" Mandy had shouted at the irritated boy. "Now let her put the damn stuff on already!")and Hinata would be wearing a pair of Mandy's old sunglasses, to hide the Hyuuga family bloodline. As useless as it now was, it still drew unneeded attention, and that was the last thing the characters needed. Mandy had heard horror stories from Kyle about Sakura beating someone up at the Mall in his city for commenting about her hair, and Venus had said that Orochimaru was behaving rather well, except for the time he scared the bejeezus out of her grandmother. Apparently, he had contented himself with skulking around Venus' family residence, and her family was finding it very hard to sleep at night. And Neji….well, Neji wasn't helping any, needless to say.

**Christmas Eve, 4:00 PM.**

**St. Augustine Church**

"I'm bored!" Naruto whisper-hissed to Mandy as he fidgeted in the pew. The family was sitting in the church, waiting for the grandparents to arrive for the Children's Mass. "Why the hell are we here?" A few heads turned and several people glared or stared at the boy, who thankfully was unrecognizable as Uzumaki Naruto thanks to the concealer on his face and the lack of the Konoha headband and orange jumpsuit (which was currently being washed).

"We're here because it's a tradition." Brian said, trying to stifle a laugh. "And it's the only time of the year that Dad goes to church-" ("Hey!") "and you need to blend in, kid."

"Kid?! I'm U-" Naruto's little snafu was interrupted by Samantha grabbing his collar and bringing him close to her face.

"Listen, kid," she whispered. "I'm trying to enjoy myself here, and it's hard for any of us to relax with you yapping like this. Now will you please shut up?" A few kids behind them cheered.

**A Few Hours Later:**

"So….why are we heading up to Sonata again?" Naruto asked from the back seat, where he was sitting between Samantha and Hinata, while Mandy sat in the front, and Brian was driving with a bored look on his face.

"We're going to Uncle Max's place for the party." Mandy explained as a Trans-Siberian CD played merrily in the back. "And, you'll get to meet the family. Dammit, Naruto, stop scratching your face! The makeup'll come off!"

"But it itches!" Naruto whined.

"It's not burning, is it?" Brian asked wearily. When Naruto answered that no, his face wasn't burning, Brian, Mandy, and Samantha were obviously relieved. The last thing they needed now (besides a horde of rabid fangirls) was for Naruto to have an allergic reaction to makeup, of all things! As they pulled down dreary Frank Avenue,-

"What the hell is that thing?" Samantha asked incredulously as they pulled into Uncle Max's driveway. It took a moment for everyone to realize just what she was talking about.

"…It's a… what is that?" Mandy asked, before she snorted. "It looks like a sperm!" she guffawed, now unable to breathe due to her laughter. Indeed, the strange object in their uncle's yard looked like a bizarre rocking, lit up sperm. Naruto, of course, had no idea what was so funny, while everyone else was laughing. It looked like one of the tomoe from a Sharingan, while Hinata was blushing as she remembered what a "sperm" was.

"It's a fricking dolphin." Brian remarked, and this only made the siblings laugh harder. Seeing the looks from the characters (very verbal looks), he explained. "Uncle Max likes the Miami Dolphins."

"The who?"

"The Miami Dolphins. They're a football team." Mandy explained.

"What's football?"

"….Remember what Grandpa Dennis was watching when we were all making cookies? That's football. It's like a second religion." Mandy frowned. "Speaking of which, I can't wait to see Rick. I wonder how his trip to Rome was."

Naruto remembered how Mandy and her family had been talking about this "cousin Rick" and how he had met someone they called "The Pope", someone of very high standing, a 'Kage of his own country, as Kitty had explained. Apparently, Mandy thought this new "Pope" looked like an old school bully, and preferred the old one. "He apologized for the atrocities that were the Crusades. Naruto-nii, imagine that the Hokage gave orders to convert the Oto-nin to Konoha-nin. And they refused. Imagine him then giving the order to eradicate each and every Otokagure citizen, down to the last child." Seeing the horrified look on Naruto and Hinata's faces, she continued. "See, while that sort of act is near impossible in these days, years ago, great horrors could be carried out in the name of religion and no one would bat an eye or do anything about it."

"Uh…Mandy, we're getting off topic." Kitty had explained. Mandy had agreed, and then changed the topic to lawnmowers.

" …" Naruto was silent as he was dragged from the car and into the house. Mandy was cheerfully introducing him as "Naru" to everyone else, and he smiled at everyone that he met. Hinata was now wearing some colored contacts that had been bought at the last minute, and was easily blending in. It was a relief, Mandy thought, to see her so…happy. She had done some more detailed research on the Hyuuga family, and was pleased to see that things would look up for Hinata soon. And for Naruto as well, well, in a sense.

"Naru has the worst luck." She said dryly to her uncle.

"How's that?"

"You can say that Fate dealt him a shitty hand." Donna smacked her daughter across the back of the head.

"There's children present!"

It had been a long night for everyone involved. Naruto was sleeping in the back of the car, his head lolled over on Samantha's shoulder. Hinata looked like she was going to fall asleep any second, and Mandy was still laughing about the men all getting drunk and singing "Feed The World".

"They kept playing the same damn CD over and over!" Mandy was ranting. "If I had to hear that damn 'Dominic the Christmas Donkey' song one more time, I'd have ended up hurting someone!" Brian ignored her. He had learned to tune her out a long time ago.

"I know what you mean." Samantha remarked. "Sometimes I feel the same way about my sister and her band." This caught Brian's interest.

"Your sister has a band?" he asked. Samantha did an awkward half-nod, and Naruto snapped awake, wearily blinking.

"Where am I?"

"You're back in the car on the way back to our house." Brian answered, before discussing music and guitars with Samantha. Naruto, meanwhile, was asking Hinata what she had thought of the O'Reilly family.

"That Uncle Max is awesome! Did you see all the "foot-ball" stuff? How about that "San-Ta" guy? Don't you think he looks a little like Jiraiya? I don't understand why people let some strange old guy in their houses while they sleep."

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Notes. 

1.However, there had been the time that Naruto booby-trapped Grandma Lois' front porch after seeing a stranger on there. The mailman was scarred for life when a bunch of smokebombs went off and he had fallen off the porch in the ensuing chaos. Mr. Johnson declined to press charges after Mandy explained that Mingren(2) had grown up in a war zone in Cambodia, and was determined to protect himself and his adoptive family. However, it was noted later that the man tended to avoid the house unless he was met at the porch.

2. Mingren is the name Naruto was given in the Chinese version of the first Naruto movie. Our advice, dont watch anything downloaded by someone else if you have no idea who the characters are. Its really confusing. Especially if the subtitles are translated from Japanese to Chinese to English.

Please. As always leave a review by pressing the bluish purplish button just below. We like reading opinions. Especially honest ones.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer**- We do not own _Naruto_. Never have, never will. We only own ourselves and Mandy owns Samantha.

A/N- Sorry its been so long in coming. But your in luck, for the esteem authoress herself finally got inspired! Well enough to write down two chapters. So those of you still reading this, thanks for staying with us. And for those of you just now coming in, sit back, take a seat and enjoy the ride.

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**Chapter 11: Status Report 2 **

**December 25, 2006, 9:57 PM **

**Currently listening to: "Coppelia's Casket" by ALI Project**

….I, for one, am glad that our family Christmas celebrations are not as crazy as the O'Riley ones. For one thing, there's less drinking at the parties. Several of the men here got drunk and began singing that "Feed The World" song. Then again, the same Christmas CD has been playing for the past three hours. It's no wonder that they'd want to sing along. I will admit that watching drunk people is a lot of fun.

Naruto is talking animatedly with some of the relatives. Apparently, he has adopted the alias of "Taro-kun" and is asking what Rome is like. Hinata is just watching him, which is somewhat creepy. I mean, Naruto doesn't even know why she watches him the way she does. The kid's really dense. I mean, really dense. And from what I've read here, the only things he'll really pay attention to are ramen, new techniques, and people who try to kill him or his friends. Maybe it's a good thing. I'm not about to interfere, the results may not be what I want. Heck, who am I kidding? Anyone who's read A Sound of Distant Thunder (or Pet Sematary for that matter) knows what screwing around with things you don't understand can (and will) do. Wait, does that mean we're in trouble? I know Mandy has had some sort of encounter with Naruto's "tenant", but judging from what she told me last night, she thinks it was just some weird dream. I'll let her believe that for now, I have the feeling she might freak out if she finds otherwise.

Christmas morning was awkward. Understandable, as they weren't expecting us. Mandy got Naruto two packages of ramen to last for the remainder of our stay, She was tackled. I've never seen anyone move so fast. Well, anyone besides Shin and his friends. I wonder what they're doing now. I haven't seen them since – I won't get into that. It wasn't pleasant. Anyway, Donna got Hinata some makeup (I swear, the woman is obsessed with the stuff), and I got…The Art of War. The book, not the movie. At least, I think there was a movie with that name. At least it's a useful book.

I'm impressed with the way Mandy and her friends are handling this situation. I mean, the fact that they can still get on with their lives and juggle interdimensional houseguests is something to be proud of. We'll have to see if they can get jobs with us, I mean, I know Mandy could be a good agent. Puddle-jumping is rather trying at times, though, we'll have to check her mental state. The ADD/ADHD may be a bit of a problem.

Oh, the dog's attacking Naruto again. What is it with him and dogs here? Do they sense his tenant? Then again, it could be because he's no good at keeping his food away from them. I'd better go break this up.

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	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: We do not own _Naruto_, or any other trademarked material you might see in here. Do we honestly need to keep going over this?

A/N- Just a quick mention, this chapter includes two people talking on IM, so I separated them by icons.

Underlined for Mandy

_Italics_ for Kyle

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**Chapter 12 Happy Christmas **

Mandy was bored. It was December 26, and they only had three more days until they had to go back to school, and Naruto and his friends would be leaving. Part of her was happy that it would be over, that she could sleep uninterrupted again. But part of her would miss Naruto barging into her room late at night to dump Seppy on her, Hinata's quiet fascination with their world, and the discussions of samurai cinema with Samantha. Then again, there would be things she would most definitely not miss, like hiding Naruto and Hinata's identities (If this had been the manga version of Hinata, they could've passed it off as contacts, but no, she was stuck with those sunglasses that made poor Hinata look like a hippie), the barely keeping their guests from attacking random bystanders (three of which had simple pocketknives), and finally…

Chakra.

It may not have worked in the Root World like it did in the "Narutoverse" as Mandy had referred to it, but obviously, their bodies found ways to adapt to its non-usage. Mainly, through an increased appetite. Mandy's family was horrified to learn that Naruto alone had almost depleted the supply of Christmas cookies. "Maybe he's like Yukito." Mandy said to Samantha as they sat watching a Tarantino marathon on one of the movie channels. "Subconsciously trying to supply power to his tenant by eating constantly."

"…What are you talking about?"

"Cardcaptor Sakura. One of the only shojo manga I can stand." Mandy sighed. "I still have to get the first six volumes."

"…You really like CLAMP manga, don't you?"

"I haven't bothered collecting X and the rest of RG Veda. One, X is unfinished and is probably never going to be concluded, and RG Veda is way too much of a soap opera. Like Fruits Basket, or Fullmetal Alchemist."

"I actually met Ed once." Samantha smiled wistfully. "Reality storms can have an effect on worlds dimensions away. The poor kid ended up in the girl's dressing room at my local Dillards. I had to smuggle him out."

"Seriously?"

"Yup. At least my old Midway Tigers sweatshirt acted as camouflage." She paused. "It was still too big for him, but it hid his metal arm."

"Wow." Mandy was chopping up ramen noodles and steaming rice for an original dish she had come up with. She put the soup stock in the rice and stirred, before mixing in the chopped noodles and sliced beef. The result-a strange variety of gyudon (beef over rice) that Naruto would hopefully eat when he came in from playing in the snow. The house was surrounded by snow forts and snowmen. Having read some Calvin and Hobbes the night before, Mandy and Samantha had been making a bunch of "Snow Goons" that looked like they were going after the fort. Naruto was currently using them as training dummies, while Samantha was spraying the downed Snow Goons with a spray bottle full of red colored water.

"This tastes weird." Samantha remarked as she removed her fork from her mouth. "Did you put sugar in this?"

"No." Mandy answered. "Just one packet of soup stock. It's supposed to be an all-in one meal."

"Well, I like it!" Naruto announced before practically inhaling his bowl. "It needs more noodles."

"I got some Udon noodles while I was shopping." Mandy shrugged.

"That sounds good." Hinata said softly, reaching down to pet Charcoal.

"Should I try making another one of these things with udon tomorrow?"

"…No." Samantha deadpanned. "My sister cooks better than you."

"I make good roast." Mandy defended. "Besides, I'm good at cooking things that I like!"

"................" You could cut the silence with a knife. Hinata quietly finished her meal, before retiring to the living room. The cats followed her in, and Naruto could've sworn that Seppy winked at him. Mandy calmly told him that he did that sometimes, as she continued eating the "Gyumen", as Naruto called it. It had an interesting taste, she decided as she took a swig of milk. At least it wasn't downright terrible.

"I'll make us some rice pilaf tomorrow." She said to Samantha, who was still poking at her meal. "If you don't like it, give it to Naruto."

________________________________________________________________________________

Mandy was watching TV that night when Naruto came into the house. She had put in the Indiana Jones movies and was currently on The Last Crusade. Right now, Dr. Jones Sr. was making the gulls fly into the Nazi warplane.

"This place is AWESOME!" He shouted.

"Mom and Dad are trying to sleep." Mandy commented. He quieted down, but not much.

"I saw a bunch of deer! They don't look anything like the deer that Shikamaru's family raises! There was like, twenty of them!"

"Seriously? Usually we only see six or seven!" Mandy blinked. "Where were you?"

"I dunno." Naruto answered. Mandy smacked her forehead in exasperation. "There were signs on the trees, though."

"Did they say 'No Trespassing'?"

"I don't know. I can't read English." The faint undercurrent of Japanese in his voice was barely audible. Mandy made out the word "Eigo" though.

"…Oh. That's a problem." She thought for a moment, before going into her room and Naruto could faintly hear her cursing as she rummaged about. She came out with a box, full of books. "Here." She handed him the thinnest of all. It had a dark brown spine, and a beige, tan, and blue cover. "It's the most basic of the McGuffey Readers."

"…The what?"

"Least I can do before you leave is try to teach you and Hinata the alphabet." Mandy explained. "I dunno how much it'll help, though. And I can't believe it never occurred to me that you couldn't read." 'God, I feel like an idiot.' Mandy went through her private messages on Gaia. Hm, there was one from Kyle.

**Subject: Guests **

_Saku__ra gave me a black eye because I made fun of Sasuke's hair._

She snorted and replied.

**Subject: Re: Guests **

Feh. At least the Bubblegum Bitch actually grows up. I'm trying to teach Naruto the alphabet. Turns out he can't read English.

_Seriously? Good luck with that. I heard from Kite that Sasuke and Shikamaru already know how to read and write._

I'm using a McGuffey reader.

_A what now?_

The McGuffey Reader. It's a schoolbook used in the nineteenth century. I have a box set of reprints I got from a sale. 

_…Wow._

Old textbooks are fun to read. I actually have a few ones from the seventies. You should see what the Cuyahoga River used to look like, it's disgusting.

_Anyway, how are Naruto and Hinata?_

Lessee, Naruto is trying to-hold on a minute-Okay, I just gave him a pen and paper, and he's writing the letters. Hinata is flipping through the Fifth Reader, and Samantha is watching a Law and Order CI marathon in the next room. We both like Goren.

_I never watch Law and Order._

It's awesome. Anyway, how's the creep?

*I am not a creep.* Red text.

Dammit, Kyle, get him away from your computer! 

_Sorry._

Yeah right. He been using your comp to look up porn? 

_…I hope not. He says he hasn't._

Ugh. Your parents know he reads porn? My grandma blew a gasket when she saw that one picture. 

_He said something about that. You ran off and left him_.

Hell hath no fury like a pissed off old lady. 

_I don't doubt that._

Man, Naruto writes fast. Should I go into pronunciation? 

_…Why?_

Nah, he's got the gist of it. Kid's a quick learner. Hinata's not doing so bad either. I'll have to have her watch Miss Congeniality later and teach her to SING.

_What?_

Solar plexus Instep Nose Groin.

_Ouch._

Common self defense is just as effective as ninja crap. 

*It is.*

Red text again. It must be Kakashi.

Dammit, Kyle! Is he reading over your shoulder or something? 

_If I said yes, would you be mad?_

… Mandy put in a few angry face emoticons instead of actually typing words. Then she got bored. She boiled some water, cooked some ramen noodles, drained them, and then put them in a pan coated with oil. She idly fried them. Noticing the look on the two kids' faces, she put the mass of noodles on the cutting board, and chopped them in half. "I hope these turned out alright. I don't know how different ramen noodles are from egg noodles."

"Egg?"

"I'm using a cookbook for making Chinese." Mandy explained. "And I have no egg noodles, so I used ramen. Then again, we have practically none of the ingredients needed for making 99% of these recipes, so our options are limited."

"That sucks, dattebayo."

"Indeed it does. I'd love to try some of the dumplings in here. I just don't like vegetables."

And with that, she lost 100% of her audience. Oh well, it wasn't like the discussion was actually important, she thought as she watched Naruto shovel the noodles into his mouth. Hinata had much better table manners, she decided.

**December 27 2006 3:50 AM **

Samantha sat in the basement, watching one of Mandy's anime DVDs as Charcoal purred on her lap. She couldn't sleep. There was no reason for her to be awake, no reason for her to be unable to drift off. Yet here she was, in a dark yet cozy basement, watching a marathon of Studio Ghibli movies. How was this possible?

"You can't sleep either?" Mandy's voice came from the top of the stairs. Samantha answered that no, she couldn't. "Me neither. Naruto dumped Seppy on me again." He had, too. She had been sound asleep until, like a bomb, a rather heavy cat was dumped on her stomach. Her parents hadn't appreciated the storm of curses that she had shouted as she awoke from a rather creepy dream not unlike from that Silent Hill movie she had watched with her cousin. She had never been able to look at that small town her friend Rachel lived in the same way after that.

"So," Samantha broke her out of her recollection, "What are you doing down here?"

"Getting a book." Mandy pointed to the cobweb filled computer room, where the old computer languished, along with the old Sega Genesis and the dismantled Playstation. It was more of a graveyard for electronics than anything else. That old scanner radio was in there somewhere too.

"Which one?" When Samantha had been in there, she had seen an entire wall of books.

"I dunno. I usually see one I feel like reading, and pick it."

"You don't have the Naruto manga."

"I don't like the popular series. They last too long. Cost a lot of money. Besides, I'd feel like a pervert." Samantha decided not to ask. Having read the few issues of Shonen Jump Mandy had, she had a bit of an idea of what her friend meant. "And Naruto-nii really needs to clean his apartment."

_____________________________________________________________________________________


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: We still don't own anything. At least nothing trademarked mentioned in here.

A/N: Well, looks like we have finally reached the end. At least of this story. The ideas are still coming and being worked on by both Mandy and I. And now...presenting the last chapter of...The Poster Incident!!!

*fanfare*

* * *

**Chapter 13: All In All Is All We Are**

**December 28, 2006 11:00 AM**

The drive back to Midway was oddly silent. Naruto was asleep in the back, his face smushed against the window. Samantha sat in the middle, reading a book, occasionally asking Hinata about something. Mandy noted that Hinata was reading a book too, she just had no idea what it was. Whatever. She was too damn tired to really care about anything at the moment. _'Tomorrow, life goes back to normal. I don't have to share my room with anyone anymore and I can actually eat my food in peace. I won't have any weird dreams with Naruto's tenant and he won't be dumping the cat on me when I'm trying to sleep.'_ She ended up sleeping the rest of the drive.

**December 29, 2006 2:45 PM**

The small third floor apartment was crowded for the first time in two weeks. It was hard to hear with all the chattering, that strange mixture of English and Japanese filling the air. Mandy was silent as she looked out the window at the snow covered street below, watching the neighbors walking on the sidewalks. With the falling snow, it looked like the opening of Tactics Advance. She sighed. Like at many get-togethers, she was getting bored.

"Mandy-nee?" She looked up to see Naruto looking at her curiously, a Cup Ramen in his hands. "Daijobu?"

"…I'm fine." she answered. Was she? She wasn't sure.

"No you're not." Samantha remarked as she plopped down on the chair by the window.

"You're feeling the same way I am right now aren't you?"

"And that would be-?"

"A little happy that they're going back home. A little sad that they're leaving."

"Yeah."

"Cheer up already." Kitty said. "You're making Naruto sad."

"Am I?" Mandy looked over at the kid, who was gleefully slurping ramen as he began playing the Soul Calibur game with Kite. He didn't seem sad. Then again, Mandy still wasn't entirely sure about Naruto. How many of his emotions were how he really felt, and how much was an act for everyone else? She decided not to think about it. It wasn't going to matter anyway. Samantha had explained to them how the characters' memories would have to be altered when they returned home, so that the continuity wouldn't be damaged.

"So, you're going to erase our memories too?" Kyle had asked. Samantha looked thoughtful.

"I'm not sure. We'll have to wait and see what Control thinks. But the way this situation played out, that may not be necessary."

"Oh."

"So Naruto won't remember me?" Mandy asked.

"Well, when their story ends, they may regain their memories. But I doubt he'll completely forget you. It's hard to forget someone being kind to you, especially if you've grown up in Naruto's situation."

"Yeah, I'm surprised he hasn't turned into a serial killer."

A few hours later…

"Well, this is it."

"Bye, everyone! Come back and visit sometime!" Seikai waved happily. Venus held up a hairbrush and winked at Neji, who looked like he was ready to murder her and dump the body in the river. Naga and Lina were complaining that they hadn't finished eating yet. Jiraiya was cautiously looking at them while taking notes, as Kakashi read over his shoulder, giving his thoughts. Orochimaru was silent, looking at Sasuke, who was ignoring him, and Shikamaru was saying that the trip back had better not been as troublesome as the trip here. Hinata was talking to Kitty about something, every so often looking up at Naruto and blushing. The Getbackers and Dr. Jackal were in a verbal argument about something that Mandy had no idea about, and personally, she didn't want to know about. She reached out and ruffled Naruto's hair.

"You be careful out there among them English." She grinned at the confused look on his face, followed by an irritated "Get off me!" as he pulled her hand out of his hair.

"All right, everyone who isn't coming with us leave the room!" Samantha exclaimed, clapping her hands for emphasis. The club members filed out of the door, leaving Seikai's room to stand in the hallway. As she prepared to close the door, she smiled at the crowd. "Thanks for everything." She said, before the door shut and the third floor fell silent. And so life returned to normal in Midway, Pennsylvania. School resumed, jobs were taken, and everyone went back to their ordinary, average lives. It was a perfect happy ending, even for Mandy. She wandered the city after school, as usual, occasionally stopping at the Japanese restaurant on the corner, getting take out from the Chinese place down the street from school.

The Midway Anime Club was now showing episodes of Naruto every week at their meetings, complete with a running commentary from the audience. It was a forum of sorts, where stories of Christmas break were told in privacy. There was the time Orochimaru was mistaken for a ghost from some horror movie that Venus and her sister were watching (he had been in the kitchen when her sister went in, and given that he was in the shadows, no one could blame her for pelting the guy with various foodstuffs). There was the time that Lina and Naga had borrowed Seikai's credit card and went to one of the finest restaurants in New York, leaving Seikai practically in debt. It had been rather strange when the bill had been taken care of by a mysterious third party, leaving Seikai to wonder just how Samantha's boss had heard about this. Of course, it was obvious, but getting that notice that her card was paid off…that had been unnerving. And there was the time Lee and the other guests at Kitty's had taken Kitty's car for a joyride. If Ban hadn't have had her cell phone, she wouldn't have been able to go out to find them with her dad. They had ended up somewhere between that town and the next, and were being questioned by the cops after the car broke down by an old abandoned mental institution. Yeah. Some things just were crazy, whether anime characters were involved or not.

"I still can't watch the series." Mandy said to Seikai, who was sketching something that looked rather…yaoi-ish. "I mean, it really feels like I'm intruding on his life. It's one thing when you don't know someone, but this is completely weird."

"Oh, so that's why you don't read the manga either."

"Uh huh. I feel like a voyeur. It doesn't feel right for me to be able to literally read and see his thoughts. But that's just my point of view."

"Huh."

"Apparently Seppy misses him."

"Yeah, you said something about that, didn't you?"

"Yup." There was a pause. "It's weird. It's like nothing ever happened. I mean, I'm glad it all turned out okay, but it's like I just now realized how boring being ordinary is sometimes. That, and I've officially, finally decided to never have kids." Seikai laughed.

It was August 15th, 2007. It had been a long time since Kitty and Mandy had left the Midway Art School. Mandy was at home reading a book when the phone rang. Probably another telemarketer, the way things had been going. So she didn't think twice about picking up the phone and asking, "Who the hell's this?" White noise. Creepy. Then..

"Open the hallway closet." Mandy blinked.

"What?" Whoever was on the other end made a noise like a groan.

"Open the hallway closet."

"Who the fuck is this?" Mandy snapped. Seppy twitched and stretched out on the couch.

"Just open the fricking closet already! Geez!" the woman on the other end bellowed.

Mandy made sure she had one of the Cutco knives in hand when she did so. But what she saw once she opened the door was nearly enough to make her drop the knife. It was a library. Shelves and shelves of books stretched into the distance, where a group of people were hovering around a table, discussing something. One of them looked up at her and ran over.

"Mandy!"

"...Kitty? Why are you in the-never mind. What is all this?"

"Rookie mission. We get to try out Samantha's job here." Seeing the blank look on her friend's face, Kitty sighed. "It's a job trial. Apparently everyone from school is qualified, seeing how we handled everything the last time."

"Qualified? Jesus, Kitty, they're in my dad's closet! Do you know how weird this is?"

"They were in my bathroom earlier. Anyway, come on! There's a situation in Ivalice, apparently a lot of people from other worlds are being called there, and they need people to get them together so we can access the situation." And with that, Kitty ran back over to the table. Mandy stood still for a moment, remembering those _Twilight Zone _episodes that she had watched the other day. It didn't take long for her to make a decision. She walked in, and closed the door behind her.

It had been rather boring here anyway.


End file.
